Learning behaviour 2 What do animals learn?

Learning about the location of home (or the birth place) Atlantic salmon return to their native river (they memorise olfactory cues of the stream in which they were born)

Learning about the path to the food source “Progress has been made by Chittka & Geiger, who in heroic experiments, erected 3.46m high artificial landmarks...“ Collett & Zeil 1998, In: Spatial representation in animals. (Healy S, ed)

Counting bees

Counting bees

The hippocampus as a model for processing of spatial memory information

Location of the hippocampus in humans

Why is the hippocampus called hippocampus? “The flight of fancy which led Arantius, in 1587, to introduce the term 'hippocampus‘ is recorded in what is perhaps the worst anatomical description extant. It has left its readers in doubt whether the elevations of cerebral substance were being compared with fish or beast, and no one could be sure which end was the head." Lewis FT 1923 The significance of the term hippocampus. J Comp Neurol 35: 213

The hippocampus as a neural substrate for the cognitive map?

Hippocampal place cells

Types of neurons found in hippocampus and adjacent brain areas: place cells head direction cells in the subiculum The hippocampus receives input from “intention cells” in prefrontal cortex

Hippocampus and ecology in birds – what food storing birds can do: hide 50-100 seeds a day, so may have several 1000 caches dig these up after weeks or months remember sequence of hiding (so they unearth the ones hidden earlier) remember the quality of seeds so that they preferentially dig up the better ones

Hippocampus in birds

Fig. 1.10 Learning about mates Imagine a female who mates with different males over the course of time. Such a female might learn which male is a good mate by keeping track of the number of eggs she laid when associated with each male.

Motor learning

Learning about who is part of the family e.g. in Java monkeys also some species of social bees (hive scent is memorised)

Learning and aggression e.g. Gourami fish males fight repeated contests with other males

Fig. 4.22 Males that had learned to associate a light with the presence of another male were more aggressive when the light cue was present.

Fig. 4.23

Fig. 1.11

B Fig. 1.12 right d = deficient; b = balanced;

A (left) Fig. 1.12 left

Fig. 1.13 left

Fig. 1.14

Summary know about the kinds of behavioural/ecological contexts where learning is relevant