1. Innate and Learned Behavior
Setareh Ekhteraei

2. What is the Difference?
Innate, or instinctive, experience, is not affected by the environment of the organism.
Learned behavior is caused by the environment of the organism.

3. Why Quantitative?
Results need to be quantitative in behavior experiments.
Ex: If Planaria, or flatworms, are placed in a dish in which all other variables, such as the light or temperature in different parts of the dish, are the same, given that there is food on one end of the dish, the flatworms will move towards it.
This is known as taxis, “a movement towards or away from a directional stimulus.”1
However, we have to keep track of each organism as we study its behavior. We cannot only make general, descriptive observations.
This could be approached in the above example by dividing the dish into a half with food and a half without food, and recording the number of Planaria in each half of the dish every minute.

4. What’s Kinesis?
“Kinesis is response to a non- directional stimulus, in which the rate of movement or the rate of turning depends on the level of the stimulus, but the direction of movement is not affected.”1
As humidity increases, the woodlice move less and the number of turns per hour also decreases. However, the rate at which the lice move increases. Woodlice “often congregate in small, humid spaces, increasing their chances of survival and reproduction.”1

5. How does Learned Behavior Influence Survival?
In dynamic environments, learned behavior and adaptation can help an organism increase its chances of survival.
Ex: Foxes have learned not to touch electric fences after they are shocked by them.
Ex: “Birds learn to avoid eating orange and black striped cinnabar moth caterpillars, after associating their coloration and unpleasant taste.”1

6. What is Pavlov’s Dog?
Pavlov “investigated the salivation reflex in dogs”1 and learned that dogs can be conditioned (their behavior can be altered) due to the association of external stimuli.
Pavlov noticed that the dogs showed an unconditioned response by salivating upon the sight and taste of meat, called the unconditioned stimulus.
Then Pavlov used neutral stimuli (a bell and a metronome) before presenting the unconditioned stimulus. After a few days, the dogs had learned to associate these sounds with the arrival of food, and would salivate before the unconditioned stimulus. The sound of the bell/metronome, then, would be the conditioned stimulus, and the secretion of saliva would be the conditioned response.

7. Why is Birdsong Important?
In some species, birdsong is partly innate and partly learned.
Ex: chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs): males use song to hold their territory and attract females. Each male’s song is slightly different to allow their identification, and also specific to chaffinches.
If you listen to a song from a chaffinch reared in isolation, it has some features of the normal (bird not isolated) chaffinch song, however, there is a narrower range of frequencies, indicating that chaffinches learn from each other.
Spectrograms:
we-learn-from-sonograms-.html

8. Quiz 1.Experience not affected by the environment.
2.Experience that is a result of the environment.
3.What type of response is each example to the right?
4.Explain Pavlov’s Conditioning in Dogs.
5.Explain how birdsong is important.

9. Answers 1. Innate/ Instinctive Behavior 2.Learned Behavior
3. See image at right.
4. Pavlov learned that dogs can be conditioned. He found that dogs showed an unconditioned response to the unconditioned stimulus, and after associating neutral stimuli with the unconditioned stimulus, was able to achieve a conditioned response from this new conditioned stimulus created.
5.Birdsong is partly innate and partly learned in some species.

10. Sources
Allott, Andrew. Biology for the IB Diploma: Standard and Higher Level. Oxford: Oxford UP, Print. Allott, Andrew. Biology for the IB Diploma: Standard and Higher Level. Oxford: Oxford UP, Print. "Cornell Lab of Ornithology." : Bioacoustics Research Program. Cornell University, Web. 21 Apr "The Four Ages Of Sand." 'The Four Ages Of Sand' N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr