Untitled Quiz

Introduction to Animal Ethology

• Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, including humans.
• Approaches include experimental (controlled experiments) and naturalistic (observing animals in their natural environment).
• Key areas of study include instinct, animal cognition, learning, mate choice, and foraging.
• The theory of evolution is the primary framework used in ethology.

Goals of Studying Animal Ethology

• Behaviour often better indicates internal state than verbal reports.
• Many cognitive processes (perception, learning, memory) operate unconsciously.
• Animal behaviours are measurable.
• Some individuals lack language, making behaviour a reliable measure of cognitive processes.
• Animal models enrich theoretical frameworks for understanding humans.

Historical Trajectories

• Cartesian Approach (Descartes): separates humans and animals, considering humans unique in possessing reason.
• Darwinian Approach: emphasizes the continuity between human and animal behaviour, highlighting quantitative, not qualitative differences.

Objective Ethological Approach

• Focuses on directly observable behaviour.

Tinbergen's Concepts

• Specific action patterns (SAPs): fixed, indivisible behavioural sequences, largely independent of context. Triggered by sign stimuli.
• Sign stimuli: specific external stimuli that immediately trigger fixed action patterns.
• Supernormal stimuli: stimuli that are more effective at evoking a response than the natural stimulus. Not found in nature.

Principle of Invariance

• Certain patterns are effective regardless of how they are presented (static vs. dynamic).

Animal Cognitive Abilities

• Insight: sudden understanding of a problem's solution without prior experience.
• Spatial memory: ability to remember the location of objects.
• Numerical ability: capacity to recognize and process quantities.
• Episodic memory: remembering specific events and experiences.

Evolutionary and Selective Processes

• Evolution: processes leading to changes in heritable traits over generations driven by natural selection.
• Natural selection: traits that increase survival and reproduction are more likely passed down.
• Sexual selection: traits that enhance mate attraction impact transmission of genes.
• Group selection: behaviour beneficial to a group, even if it's detrimental to an individual. It is less common than it once predicted to be.

Learning in Animals

• Non-associative learning: response to a single repeated stimuli.
  • Habituation: decreasing response strength to a repeated stimulus.
  • Sensitization: enhanced response strength to a stimulus.
• Associative learning: linking to unrelated stimuli.
  • Classical (Pavlovian) conditioning: associating a neutral stimulus with an automatic (unconditioned) response. (e.g., Pavlov's dogs).
  • Operant conditioning: associating a behaviour with a consequence. (e.g., Skinner box).
  • Garcia effect: learning associations between taste and illness, regardless of time interval.

Social Learning

• Social facilitation: increased tendency to perform a task/behaviour in the presence of a social group.
• Imitation: copying a complex action performed by a model.
• Emulation: adopting a goal-directed action to achieve a similar outcome to an observed task, even if the method is different.
• Local enhancement: increased interest for an object or location after observing others.
• Teaching: one animal guides another to learn a new skill or solve a problem.
• Cultural transmission: behaviours being passed between social groups.

Cognition

• Problem-solving: ability to figure out solutions to problems that require novel solutions.
• Memory: retention and use of prior experiences.
• Theory of mind: ability to attribute mental states (beliefs, intentions, desires) to oneself and others.