Learning and Cultural Transmission

Phenotypic Plasticity - The ability to produce different phenotypes depending on environmental condtions. Length of Lifespan Changing Conditions

It’s expensive!

Where home is located What food they should eat or avoid Learning about your mate Learning about Familial relationships Learning about aggression

Non-Associative Learning Associative Learning Habituation and Sensitization Spatial Learning Imprinting Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning Innate

Cultural Transmission Horizontal Lateral Oblique Social Faciliation Local Enhancement Social Learning Copying Imitation TEACHING

Non-Associative Sensitization – Becoming more sensitive to a stimulus over time (rubbing your arm) Habituation – Becoming less sensitive to a stimulus over time (sound of cars by your house).

Stimulus Response

Unconditioned Stimulus (US) – The stimulus that naturally elicits the behavior (dog food). Conditioned Stimulus (CS) – The one the dog is learning (The bell)

Conditioned Response – response from conditioned stimulus (Dog salivates when the bell is ringing). Unconditioned response?

Appetitive Stimulus – A positive stimulus (food, shelter, mate). Aversive Stimulus – Negative (poison, shock)

-Two stimuli learned together - One is removed, reduced response. - In this case, overshadowing of the blue stick by the red light has taken place in group 2.

One stimuli is learned (blue stick) and then later, another (red light) When two stimuli are learned, the inability to pair just one of them to the stimuli

-Edward Thorndike (Cats) - B.F. Skinner (Rats) - The animal learns that a particular action results in a outcome - Operant Response (pushing the lever) Video

Classical Conditioning – Learning by association Operant Conditioning – Learning by consequences In Classical, the animal learns to associate a behavior that it naturally does with some new stimulus In Operant, an animal learns to do (or not do) a behavior because of the response (or consequence) it receives.

Taste Aversion Experiments “Bright-Noisy Water” vs. “Tasty Water” Rats learned to avoid “Tasty Water” (gustatory) when exposed to X-Ray or toxin DID NOT learn to avoid Bright-Noisy Water when exposed to X-Ray or toxin What Animals can learn?...

Opposite true with shock treatment Learned avoidance with “Bright-Noisy Water” but not “Tasty Water” Concluded that Natural Selection would favor Gustatory Cues with internal discomfort and peripheral pain with Auditory Cues. What Animals Learn?

But not this way!

Zenaida Doves learn faster when they live in groups.

Low anxiety rats learned to escape water maze faster. LA Rats had lower corticosterone and higher mineralcorticoid receptors in their hypothalamus

The transfer of information from one individual to another individual

-Imo, Koshima Islet, Japan -Given Sweet Potatoes on Sandy Beach -Imo learned to wash them. -Most infant Macaques had learned this behavior over the years.

Started with Three year old female Japanese Macaque, Glance-6476 Brought stones from forest stacked them up and knock them down. Territorial of her stones. Picked them up when others approached. Four years later, had become a daily occurrence Usually passed down to younger generations, but not up. Not documented in wild, non- provisioned groups. Only those with “Leisure Time”.

Natural Selection generally takes a long time to bring about change. Cultural Transmission can allow complex behaviors to be spread very quickly through a population.

Social Facilitation A lone Starling is attracted to a group (The group is not necessarily doing an action) Safety in numbers

Fish 1 is drawn to where Fish 2 is foraging for food (doing an action). Once there, Fish 2 learns nothing else from Fish 1.

Capuchin Monkeys – Tested probability of eating a new (Novel) kind of food. Alone, would not eat much Alone but could see a group, would not eat (no social facilitation) Alone, but could see a group eating (Local Enhancement)

Lots of examples involving humans and other animals. Chimps learn how to “fish” for termites by watching other chimps.

Children working art project get one of two treatments: 1)Adult in room yelling and beating up “Bobo” doll. 2)Adult room is calm (“Bobo” doll still in room). Children then given choice of toys to play with (aggressive vs. nonaggressive). Angry adult - children played with aggressive toys & beat up “Bobo” and yelled same things. Video

When a new behavior is learned from others and the behavior involves some sort of new spatial (topographical) manipulation as well as lead to the achievement of some goal.

Britian in 1940’s One bird probably accidentally opened the foil cap. Others learned by watching.

An observer repeats what a model has done. Differs from imitation in that it does not have to be new (novel) and does not have to involve some new topographical action. Good example, mate-choice copying. Animal already knows how to choose a mate, but it might copy what another does.

Put in for 10 minutes, then released. Female usually choose Male other female choose.

Mouse bitten by Stable fly – buries itself. Observer later buries itself when it sees stable fly.

Mom Cheetah’s: 1)Pursue and knock down prey, allow it to stand and run off so cubs could finish it off. 2) Carried back live animals to cubs before releasing them. 3) Would run slowly and let cubs take down prey (less common)

Eat many things including scorpions. Helpers would bring young pups dead or incapacitated scorpions. Older pups got live scorpions By playing experimental calls, researchers had helpers bringing different things.

Vertical – Across generations from parents to offspring. Horizontal – From peer to peer (such as your friends). Think Horizon…. Oblique – Across generations, but not via parent/offspring interactions.

“Beaching” – Will chase a fish out of water and well go up on land to catch it. “Sponging” – Will get a sponge and feel around for fish on bottom Primarily seen in Females and their calves. Genetic Analysis suggest it is NOT genetic but learned.

Wild-raised more fearful of snakes than lab-raised Lab raised that saw an adult (related or not) show fear of snakes learned to the fear (oblique transmission) Fear of flowers?, no fear developed

Learning (Letters, Names, Organization)