1. What is the difference between a psychologist and an ethologist?
Ethologist - behaviour of animals in their natural environment. Psychologist – behaviour in an artificial environment
Examples?

7. Innate and learned behaviour
There are two types of behaviour:
Innate behaviour
Learned behaviour
Developes independently of the environment. Controlled by genes and inherited. E.g. does a spider learn to spin a web? Classic example = mating behaviour of three-spined stickleback pg. 472, fig 16.9
Innate behaviour – no trial or error learning is taking place. Controlled by genes, spiders do not learn to build webs, wasps do not learn to build nests, human babies are not taught how to suck
Not genetically programmed. Learn to read/ride bike etc. gain/modify new knowledge/skills. Why is learning difficult to see/measure?

8. Innate examples… Spider webs Wasps building nests Infants suckling
Termite mounds
Simple bird song
Courtship ritual of the male three-spined stickleback
Reflec arc diagram

9. Learned examples… Reading Bike riding Tie knots House training dogs
Complex bird song
Sea lion training – does this demonstrate learning?

10. Innate behaviour
Learned behaviour
Develops independently of the environment
Dependent of the environment
Controlled by genes
Not controlled by genes
Inherited from parents
Not inherited from parents
Developed by natural selection
Develops by a response to environmental stimulus
Increase chances of survival & reproduction
May or may not increase chance of survival/reproduction

11. Does learning improve the chances of survival?

12. Examples…
A lot of learning in the natural world is due to trial and error
In pairs, answer the question. Provide examples from research that we have not talked about. Try to use an example from one of the phyla we talked about in T5.

13. Ivan Pavlov
Russian, physiologist designed experiments to demonstrate classic conditioning using dogs.
Studied salivation in dogs. At the start of the research, the dogs would salivate only when they smelled the food. After a period of time, Pavlov noticed the dogs would salivate when they saw the research assistant – not the food. The behaviour had changed.
He tested this by ringing a bell whenever the food was presented. Eventually the dogs would salivate at the sound of the bell not the smell of the food.
Pavlov externalised the salivary glands as part of his study. He won the Nobel Prize. Circa His work did raise questions about morality and ethics in scientific research.
How would this kind of research

14. Measured the amount of saliva produced by dogs
He conditioned the dogs to produce saliva in response to a bell ringing, not the smell of food.
UCS – unconditioned stimulus (dog food)
UCR – unconditioned response (salivation)
NS – neutral stimulus (bell ringing)
CS – conditioned stimulus (bell)
CR – conditioned response (salivation to bell)

15. TOK link
The extent to which Pavlov’s theory can be applied to different examples of learning could be considered.

16. Bird song is both innate and learned.
Birds have an innate song, however, over the course of a life time the song changes as the birds learn new songs.
Syrinx is located at the bottom of the trachea – bony, vocal organ.
Bird song has been studied for many, many years.
Why do birds sing? Do all birds sing the same song?

17. Three learning abilities to increase survival: Imprinting
Food hoarding
Song
Young animals becoming attached to mother – protection/food
Learned strategy, remain nourished even when food is scarce
Learned, attracts mates, deters rivals
A.6: Ethology, study of animal behaviour.
Divide into groups: migration behaviour, Alturistic behaviour, Foraging, Breeding strategies, Courtship, innatate behaviours that increase chance of survival,