Primates And Elements of Behavior

Primates Binocular vision, well-developed cerebrum, fingers and toes, and arms that can rotate around their shoulder joints Apes, lemurs, monkeys, humans Human Classification –Kingdom Animalia –Phylum Chordata –Class Mammalia –Order Primate –Family Hominidae –Genus Homo –Species sapiens

Fingers, Toes and Shoulders –Five flexible fingers –Flexible toes/digits –Opposable thumbs – allow primates to hold objects and climb –Arms rotate in broad circles around shoulder joints

Well-Developed Cerebrum –Display more complex behaviors than many other mammals –Social behaviors – adoption of orphans, warfare between troops

Binocular Vision Eyes face forward with overlapping fields of view = binocular vision Binocular vision – ability to merge visual images from both eyes = depth perception and three-dimensional views

Elements of Behavior

Stimulus and Response Behavior – organism reacts to its internal condition or external environment –Simple – turning head in direction of noise –Complex – several actions taken Stimulus – any kind of signal that carries information and can be detected – stomach “growls” = you are hungry and need to eat Response – specific reaction to a stimulus – waking up to alarm clock Types of Stimuli –Light, sound, odors, heat –Not all animals can detect all stimuli

How Animals Respond Responses vary When an animal responds to a stimulus, body systems (including the sense organs, nervous system, and muscles) interact to produce the resulting behavior Detect stimulus – information sent to brain via nerve cells – brain processes information – brain directs body’s response

Types of Behaviors 2 major types of behaviors: –Innate behaviors –Learned behaviors

Innate Behavior –Appear in fully functional form the first time they are performed, even though the animal may have had no previous experience with the stimuli –Examples of innate behaviors: suckling of a newborn mammal, spiders weaving webs, building nests by birds Other examples?

Learned Behavior Alter behavior as a result of an experience = learning Offspring learn behaviors from parents – elephants and their trunks Four types of learned behavior: –Habituation –Classical conditioning –Operant conditioning –Insight learning

Habituation –Simplest type of learning –Process by which an animal decreases or stops its response to a repetitive stimulus that neither rewards nor harms the animal –Ragworm and shadows – responds to initial shadow by retreating – more shadows = stops responding to shadows

Classical Conditioning –Associate stimulus with reward –Animal makes a mental connection between a stimulus and some kind of reward or punishment –Skunk and dog – dog gets sprayed once, learns not to both skunk again (hopefully…) –Pavlov’s Dogs - salivate with sound of bells

Pavlov’s Experiment After Conditioning When Pavlov rang a bell in the absence of food, the dog still salivated. The dog was conditioned to salivate in response to a stimulus that it did not normally associate with food. During Conditioning By ringing a bell every time he fed the dog, Pavlov trained the dog to associate the sight and smell of food with the ringing bell. Before Conditioning When a dog sees or smells food, it produces saliva. Food is the stimulus and the dog’s response is salivation. Dogs do not usually salivate in response to nonfood stimuli.

Operant Conditioning –“Trial-and-error” learning through practice –Animal learns to behave in a certain way through repeated practice, in order to receive a reward or avoid punishment –Used to train animals –Skinner Box – colored button inside a box – press it = food; animal learns it gets food when it presses button

Insight Learning –Reasoning – animal applies something it has already learned to a new situation –Most complex learning –New math problem – apply knowledge you already know to solve problem