PSYC 311 1st Edition Lecture 9Current Lecture- Observational Learningo helps young develop sensory and motor skills; helps older slow down aging o Monkeys learning to rinse sand off of rice and fruit in the water o monkeys fear of snakes are some aspects of learned behavior wired in?o Aversion  Australian Quolls – taste aversion induced in quolls has been shown to be learned by trained quoll’s offspring - Cross cultural species transmission - one species of monkeys learns another species’ warning cries - Chimpanzeeso Termite fishing and nut crackingo Insertion of animals with such skills into groups without such skills Naïve animals in the second group mimic the behaviors of the inserted animals o Predators teaching young  Meerkats and scorpions  Wolves and lamb taste diversion  Felids – cats (younger females learn how to hunt from the older females)o Dolphins working schools of fish up on to the shore so that they are easier to catch - Lorenz – instincts and imprintingo There are pre-wired, species-specific behaviors (instincts) Instincts or prewired behaviors are critical when an important stimulus (predator, food, mate) should produce an appropriate response the first time it is required o Hydraulic Model – variables hypothesized that relate to motivation, stimuli and responses o Learning may not be essential (it may be pre-wired)  reaction specific energy – can cause one type of response -o Sign Stimulus  Gulls with a red spot on their beaks - Triggers a fixed action pattern in the chick – pecking the beak- Pecking triggers a feeding response in adult gulls  Vacuum Activity – level of reaction specific energy build up and overflows, or a minimal sign stimulus is present  Displacement – blockage of the usual Fixed Action Pattern – reaction specific energy flow triggers atypical behavior  Model Action Patterns – FAP may slightly vary; MAPs are used instead of (most frequently occurring form of a FAP)o Imprinting  Altricial – born naked, immature, eyes shut - Typically nest in trees or protected areas Precocial birds – born ready to see, hear, locomote (move)- programmed (prewired) to attach a following response to the first moving body mass (stimulus) that they detect shortly after hatching - chickens, ducks, geese, hares  has implications for social and reproductive behaviors later in life  Critical Periods- Phases of greatest sensitivity to the moving stimulus o Amount of fear present (fear low at hatching; increases quickly)o Ability of the animal to move (locomotor abilities low at hatching)- Fear-Locomotor Dichotomy o prime time for imprinting is when locomotor ability is adequate/high, and fear is low o- Sensory Systems and relation between complexity of behavior and Nervous System structures o MIT frogs vs. Harvard Cats  Frogs have relatively underdeveloped brains; adequate for being a frog - Visual brain wired to trigger specific responses to specific stimuli - Frog displays fairly complex visually guided behavior that takes care of survival needs (learning unnecessary; prewired) - Peripheral analyses o Environmental Information sensors – stationary object detectors and dark detectorso predator (danger) sensors – dimming detectors and moving object detectorso food sensors – flies (erratically moving small objeccts) - Central analyses (cats)o Must be programmedo cats have really advanced visual brain (high cost) and complex visually guided behavior (high benefit) stimuli processed and refined at midbrain – retina has rods ands cones (not elaborate feature detectors  Simple NS – pre-wired – specific sensory stimuli trigger fixed responses - a pre-wired NS is low cost and words for the animals (survival)- However, pre-wired NS leave a window of vulnerability because of basic inflexibility o But what if something changes?- The fixed response to a stimulus creates a ecological niche for a