LEARNED BEHAVIOR

EXPERIENCE AND LEARNING

• Behavior that changes as a result of experience is called learned behavior.

• Experiences are stored in the brain as memory and can be recalled.

• In learning, a recalled experience is used to help modify behavior in a new situation.

• Unlike innate behavior, learning permits an animal to chose responses that are appropriate to the stimuli in any new situation.

• As a result of learning, an animal can adapt to change.

• While innate behavior is controlled by genes, learned behavior is controlled only indirectly by genes.

• Heredity determines the type and complexity of nervous system, which controls the ability to learn.

• Animals with more complex nervous system exhibit a greater capacity to learn.

• Animals with long life span and long periods of parental care exhibit mostly learned behavior as adults.

EXPERIENCE AND LEARNING

Learning singing

LEARNED BEHAVIOR

HABITUATION

• Learning has several forms. The simplest type of learning is called habituation.

• In this type of learning, an animal learns to ignore repeated “unimportant” stimuli.

HABITUATION

Squirrels in a park become accustomed to people and will come quite close to them.

Crows learn to ignore a harmless scarecrow in a field.

HABIT• Humans and other animals can learn to perform

many complex activities with little or no thought.• A habit is a series of actions that is learned first

and then becomes automatic through repetition.• Dressing, writing,talking, tying shoelaces, typing,

and dancing are habits.• All habits are performed slowly at first, with

concentration and often difficulty. The habit is learned through repetition until it becomes automatic and requires little or no concious effort.

• As the habit continious to develop, the actions become easier and faster to perform and more accurate.

CONDITIONING

CONDITIONING

Ivan Pavlov Pavlov in his lab.

CONDITIONING

OPERANT CONDITIONING

The Skinner BoxA Skinner box typically contains one or more levers which an animal can press, one or more stimulus lights and one or more places in which reinforcers like food can be delivered. The animal's presses on the levers can be detected and recorded and a contingency between these presses, the state of the stimulus lights and the delivery of reinforcement can be set up, all automatically. It is also possible to deliver other reinforcers such as water or to deliver punishers like electric shock through the floor of the chamber. Other types of response can be measured - nose-poking at a moving panel, or hopping on a treadle - both often used when testing birds rather than rats. And of course all kinds of discriminative stimuli may be used.

B. F. Skinner

INSTRUMENTAL(OPERANT) CONDITIONING

In this photo (Courtesy of B. Rensch), Julia, a chimpanzee, uses a magnet to move an iron ring through a maze. Julia is able to solve mazes like this on her first attempt most (86%) of the time and sometimes faster than biology students can!

In the example shown here, the pigeon — presented with two spots of light — pecks at the brighter and reaches down to pick up the grain of food that is its reward

INSTRUMENTAL(OPERANT) CONDITIONING

IMPRINTING

Goslings imprinted on mom

IMPRINTING

Experiment:

A clutch of goose eggs was divided between the mother and an incubator.

Results:

Goslings reared by the mother behaved normally and mated with other geese. The incubator goslings spent their first hours of life with Lorenz and preferred humans for the rest of their lives. They even tried to mate with humans.

INSIGHT

• It is the ability to “create” a solution to an unfamiliar problem without a period of trial and error.

• The animal surveys a new situations and uses the memory of past learning and experiences to “plan” a reasoned response.

• It is found only in complex vertebrates.

Insight is the ability to plan a solution to an unfamiliar problem. Here, chimpanzees use insight to get bananas suspended from the ceiling

Oddity problems are an example. This young rhesus monkey has learned that food will be found — not under any particular object — but under whichever object is different from the others. (Photo courtesy of H. F. Harlow, University of Wisconsin Primate Laboratory.)

In monkeys (and probably humans as well), concept formation depends on activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain

The ability to reason is most highly developed in humans. At first, young children solve problems by trial and error and by imitation. This helps them master such as motor skills as tying shoes.As children mature and learn, they begin to use İnsight to solve problems.