1. Discrimination Learning
Psychology 3926

2. Introduction Discrimination and classification can lead to many things
Recognition
Kin
food
Fights
mating

3. Some basics Sign stimuli and sticklebacks
Many stimuli together, might get heterogeneous summation
Sometimes more extreme values are responded to
Supernormal stimulus
With experience you can get perceptual sharpening

4. Heiligenberg, 1974 Cichid fish

5. Classification
Objectss/attributes may be discriminable but, may not control behaviour
Additivity or interaction can occur
Non natural objects may be the best!
Motivation can play a huge role

6. Learned discrimination
Songbirds
Marler et al
Stats, psychophysics and field biology
Jeff Cynx has shown that the reproductive condition of the listner matters
Cynx and Nottebom, birds trained to respond differently to different songs learned faster if in reproductive condition.

7. Mimicry Some insects are aposematic and successful, why not copy?
Batesian mimicry
Colouration is similar to toxic species, but the prey item is not toxic

8. Mullerian Mimicry
In Mullerian mimicry, all species that share a colouration are dangerous
Many snakes use this
Also may have characteristics that make prey look like a predator!

9. Peak Shift

10. OK, so that is odd Why does that happen? Excitatory gradient
Inhibitory grandient
As the Violent Femmes would say, you gotta add it up

11. Bird brain is not an insult
Concept learning
Natural needed?
How long lasting
Delius (1982)
Honig and Stewart (1988)
The field of comparative cognition really grew out of much of this stuff

12. Categories and Concepts
Hernstien and tree vs non tree
Go no go
New slides, better than chance
Real vs pseudocategories
Once you get the behaviour, go after the contents
Features?
Prototypes?