Innate & Learned behaviour

Scientists

• Ethologists – Study behaviour of

animals in their natural environment

• Patterns of behaviour that affect an animal’s life

• Psychologists– Study behaviour in

an artificial environment

• Collect data on learning & motivation that can’t be measured in the natural environment

E.3.1Distinguish between innate & learned behaviour

• Innate Behaviour• Instinctive – genetically based• Not modified by the individual• Uniform through population• Unaffected by environment• Beneficial behaviours product of

natural selection: survival & reproduction

– e.g. Suckling instinct in newborn, migration of blackcaps, hunting instinct in some dog

• Learned Behaviour• Based on experience • Modified by trial and error • Affected by environment• Capacity to learn may be product of

natural selection rather than specific behaviours

– e.g. Dolphin learning to perform , learning to drive a car (not by the dolphin!), domestication of animals (dogs)

Behaviour: the behaviour of an animal is the ways in which it reacts & relates to stimuli & the environment

Innate behaviour

• Can be performed in a certain order

Courtship and Display

Innate Behaviour

• Spider spins web correctly first time

• Wasp builds proper nest

• Termites build mounds

Learned behaviour

• Too what extent is human behaviour innate or learned?

What other aspects of human nature might be innate in

nature?

How do we know learning has occurred?

• Measured by performance– Stored in the

nervous system

Summary of innate vs. learned behaviour

Innate behaviour Learned behaviour

Develops independently of the environmental context

Dependent on the environmental context of the animal for development

Controlled by genes Not controlled by genes

Inherited from parents Not inherited from parents

Developed by natural selection Develops by response to an environmental stimulus

Increases chance of survival and reproduction

May or may not increase chance of survival and reproduction

E.3.2 Design experiments to investigate innate behaviour in invertebrates, including either

taxis or kinesis

Taxis

Directed response to stimuli

Taxis Response

Chemotaxis Move toward or away from food or chemicals dissolved in water (pH, concentration of dissolved drugs, food, or pesticides)

Phototaxis Move toward or away from light (different wavelengths of light, different light intensities and different types of bulbs)

Gravitaxis Response to gravity (put containers upside down, slow-spinning turntables)

Rheotaxis Response to water currents

Thigmotaxis Response to touch

Moves toward the stimulus Moves away

Kinesis Innate non-directional response to stimulus (humidity,temperature, etc)

Kinesis response

Orthokinesis Speed of movement altered as response to stimuli

Klinokinesis Rate of turning altered as response to stimuli

OrthokinesisTemperature in testing chamber is adjusted and behaviour of individuals is measuredFloor of chamber has gridMovement is video recorded for controlled timeVideo played back, with number of squares crossed counted as movement in the time periodOrthokinetic value calculated as number of squares crossed per second (mean of six runs)

KlinokinesisAs previously, but with number of turns per unit time as the basis for the calculation of the orthokinetic value

E.3.3 Analyze data from invertebrate behaviour

experiments in terms of the effect on chances of survival

and reproduction

http://bioweb.wku.edu/courses/biol114/behavior/Pill_bug1.asp

Go to above website and complete experiment

E.3.4 Discuss how the process of learning can improve the

chance of survival

Learning allows the individual to adjust its behaviour as a response to the environment,

giving an increased chance of survival

Non-Associative Learning Habituation & sensitization

• Getting used to repeated stiumus, such as background noises (habituation)

• increased response to repeated stiumuls (sensitization)

Learning allows the individual to adjust its behaviour as a response to the environment, giving an increased chance

of survival

Associative LearningObservation, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, imprinting

• E.g. chimps learning to forage from parents (observation)

• Chimps display multiple tool use

Hoarding Singing

E.3.5 Outline Pavlov’s experiment into conditioning of

dogs

Pavlov’s Experiment on Classical Conditioning

• Classical conditioning is a method of associative learning. Ivan Pavlov trained dogs to alter their response to a stimulus, based on the dogs’ expected outcomes of the behaviour. Classical conditioning results in an automatic response to a stimulus.

Classical conditioning

Blinking- reflex response

• Unconditioned stimulus – waved hand

• Unconditioned response – automatic response to a stiumuls (eye-blink)

• Neutral stimulus – does not elicit response (bell ring)

• Conditioning – neutral & unconditioned stimuli applied together (bell rings before hand waves)

• Conditioned stimulus & response – bell rings and person blinks

PAVLOV’S EXPERIMENT

E.3.6 Outline the role of inheritance & learning in the development of birdsong in

young birds

Operant conditioningBig Bang Theory

Learning of birdsong in young birds

To what extent do cowbirds learn their song?

• Birdsong is a strong indicator of reproductive fitness. This leads to sexual selection – usually the female selects mates based on their perceived levels of reproductive fitness. Sexual selection leads to development of exaggerated traits – the bigger the better.

Birdsongs

• Each bird has a species-specific song

• Birds within a species have a varied song

• Birds can learn to improve the songs they inherited

• Thus, they have both inherited and learned components

Birdsongs

• Birds sing due to their vocal organ (syrinx)

• Bony structure at bottom of their trachea

• Birds force air past a membrane in the syrinx which vibrates & results in sound

• Birds control the pitch by altering the tension in the membranes

• Generally females don’t sing

Birdsongs • Birds hatch with a

“crude template”• Memorization phase• 1st 100 days =

sensitive period• Motor phase – bird

practices singing song he has heard (from his father)

• Hears himself singing & shapes to meet his fathers

• He must hear himself in order to sing correct adult song

Birdsong

• One reason why captive birds are not reproductively successful (and might not even survive) in the wild is that they have not been imprinted with the correct mature song

Imprinting The process by which young animals become attached to their mother within the first day or so after hatching/birth

More about Imprinting

• Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz won a Nobel prize for “discoveries in individual & social behavioural patterns”. His most famous work was on imprinting geese – by exposing hatchlings to himself at the early sensitive phase of development, they learned to follow him as a “mother figure.”