Habituation and Innate Behaviour Patterns Psychology 3306 Innate

Habituation and Innate Behaviour Patterns Psychology 3306

Innate behaviour Why talk about this in learning? l Well, learning often involves innate behaviour l Many of the rules are similar l Gives some perspective, i. e. , not all behaviour is learned l

Thermoregulation Set Effectors Point Gain: Vasoconstriction Controlled Variable Feedback Loss Dilation Shivering Sweating panting Feedback mechanisms can be + or – or both

Reflexes Stereotypic in response to a stimulus l Sensory -> inter -> motor neurons l Some quite complex behaviour can come of such simple connections and in relatively simple animals l

In a Moth’s Ear…. l l Moth Ear basically has two neurons A 1 and A 2 They are not frequency sensitive, but do not respond to low frequencies

Those would be some tiny Q tips…. .

Do Moths Have Ear Wax? l l A 1 is responsive to intensity More firing with closer bat A 2 only fires with very loud sounds A 2 fires, bat must be very close

Moths and Bats, Charts and Graphs l l l A 1 on the left fires, that wing beats faster Moth’s course corrects to 180 degrees from bat So very and totally cool A 2, go crazy 2 neuron ear can encode where a predator in in 3 dimensional space!!!

Examples l Its not just me that thinks this is way cool

Behavioural Sequences Fixed action patterns l Everyone does it l Not prior learning l Rigid sequence l

Examples l Dust bathing in Burmese Red Junglefowl l Ancestor of our KFC Function of the behaviour is to clean out oil from the feathers and to get rid of parasites. l Some birds bathe in water, others in dust l

Animal starts out by fluffing up some dust

Next is a bill scratch, which gets the dust up onto the neck

Lots of scratching goes on to work up a bit of a cloud really

Dustbathing l l l This is actually pretty complex beahaviour Vestergaard, Hogan and Krujt (1990) found that junglefowl don’t need dust! Hogan and Van Boxel (1993) found that dustbathing was already rhythmic at 14 days post hatch

Etholodgy is cool Reaction chains are sequences of FAPs l You can tell it is a reaction chain and not an FAP if the animal can stop the behaviour l We have reduced all of ethology down to a few power point slides……. l

Habituation Decrease in the strength of a response after repeated presentation of a discreet stimulus l Getting used to it, sort of l NOT sensory adaptation or simply fatigue l Stimulus specific l Orienting response l Startle response l

The rules Thompson and Spencer (1966) l Gradual with time l Withhold stimulus and response will reoccur l Savings l Intensity l Overlearning l Stimulus generalization l

Pokin’ aplysisa l l l l Kendel et al Gill withdrawal Seonsory -> motor pretty much Less transmitter released into synapses! Decrease in Ca current Similar results in cats Because of its generality, habituation is often thought of as the universal learning paradigm