Download File - It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live

Kimberly Pambid
1st period
AP BIO
10/02/09
FREE RESPONSE
A fixed action pattern (FAP) is an instinctive behavioral response that is triggered
by a very specific stimulus. Fixed action patterns are produced by a neural network
known as the innate releasing mechanism. The FAP is triggered in response to an
external sensory stimulus known in animal behavior terms as a sign stimulus, or, if it is a
signal from one individual to another, it is called a releaser. Tinbergen envisioned such a
mechanism for each of the major functional categories of behavior: foraging,
reproduction, anti-predator behavior, etc. Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen was a Dutch
ethologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology with Karl von Frisch and
Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual
and social behavior patterns in animals. The example that Tinbergen worked out in
greatest detail is the reproductive instinct of the fish known as the three-spined
stickleback. The male turns a bright red/blue color during the mating season. This color
change is the FAP in response to an increasing day length which is the sign stimulus.
During this time they are also naturally aggressive towards other red-bellied sticklebacks,
another FAP. However anything that is red, or has the appearance of being red, will bring
about this FAP. The proximate response to this is that due to the stimuli, a nerve sends a
signal to attack that red item. The ultimate cause of this behavior stems from the fact that
the stickleback needs the area in which it is living for either habitat, food, mating with
other sticklebacks, or other purposes.
Imprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of
phase-sensitive learning (learning occurring at a particular age or a particular life stage)
that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior. It was first
used to describe situations in which an animal or person learns the characteristics of some
stimulus, which is therefore said to be "imprinted" onto the subject. The best known form
of imprinting is filial imprinting, in which a young animal learns the characteristics of its
parent. It was rediscovered by the early ethologist Oskar Heinroth, and studied
extensively and popularized by his disciple Konrad Lorenz working with graylag geese.
Lorenz demonstrated how incubator-hatched geese would imprint on the first suitable
moving stimulus they saw within what he called a "critical period" between 13–16 hours
shortly after hatching. Most famously, the goslings would imprint on Lorenz himself, and
he is often depicted being followed by a gaggle of geese who had imprinted on him. Filial
imprinting is not restricted to animals that are able to follow their parents, however; in
child development the term is used to refer to the process by which a baby learns who its
mother and father are. The process is recognized as beginning in the womb, when the
unborn baby starts to recognize its parents' voices. Another one would be sexual
imprinting, which is the process by which a young animal learns the characteristics of a
desirable mate.
Classical conditioning (also Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) is a form of
associative learning that was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist
who loved to work with dogs and their digestive process. The typical procedure for
inducing classical conditioning involves presentations of a neutral stimulus along with a
stimulus of some significance. The neutral stimulus could be any event that does not
result in an overt behavioral response from the organism under investigation. Pavlov
referred to this as a conditioned stimulus. Conversely, presentation of the significant
stimulus necessarily evokes an innate, often reflexive, response. Pavlov called these the
unconditioned stimulus and unconditioned response, respectively. The original and most
famous example of classical conditioning involved the salivary conditioning of Pavlov's
dogs. During his research on the physiology of digestion in dogs, Pavlov noticed that,
rather than simply salivating in the presence of meat powder, the dogs began to salivate.
Pavlov called these psychic secretions. From this, he predicted that, if a particular
stimulus in the dog’s surroundings were present when the dog was presented with meat
powder, then this stimulus would become associated with food and cause salivation on its
own. In his initial experiment, Pavlov used a bell to call the dogs to their food and, after a
few repetitions, the dogs started to salivate in response to the bell. Thus, a neutral
stimulus (metronome/bell) became a conditioned stimulus as a result of consistent pairing
with the unconditioned stimulus.
In 1947, Karl von Frisch, an Austrian ethologist who received the Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine in 1973, along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz,
correlated the runs and turns of the bee dance to the distance and direction of the food
source from the hive. The orientation of the dance correlates to the relative position of the
sun to the food source, and the length of the waggle portion of the run is correlated to the
distance from the hive. Also, the more vigorous the display is, the better the food. There
is no evidence that this form of communication depends on individual learning. One of
the most important lines of evidence on the origin and utility of the dance is that all of the
known species and races of honey bees exhibit the behavior, but details of its execution
vary among the different species. For example the "dwarf honeybees" dance is performed
on the dorsal, horizontal portion of the nest, which is exposed. The runs and dances point
directly toward the resource in these species. Each honey bee species has a different
correlation of "waggling" to distance, as well. Such species-specific behavior suggests
that this form of communication does not depend on learning but is rather determined
genetically. It also suggests how the dance may have evolved. Frisch's honey bee work
included the study of the pheromones that are emitted by the Queen bee and her
daughters, which maintain the hive's very complex social order. Pheromones are
chemical odors one organism emits to communicate with another organism, most likely
for reproductive reasons. Outside the hive, the pheromones cause the male bees, or
drones, to become attracted to a queen and mate with it. Inside the hive, the drones are
not affected by the odor.
Operant conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and
form of behavior. Operant conditioning is distinguished from classical conditioning in
that operant conditioning deals with the modification of "voluntary behavior" or operant
behavior. Operant behavior "operates" on the environment and is maintained by its
consequences, while classical conditioning deals with the conditioning of respondent
behaviors which are elicited by antecedent conditions. Behaviors conditioned via a
classical conditioning procedure are not maintained by consequences. Burrhus Frederic
Skinner was an American Psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform, and
poet. Skinner conducted pioneering research and created his own school of Radical
Behaviorism, which seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories
of reinforcing consequences. He is known as the inventor of the operant conditioning
chamber (or Skinner box), a research tool used to examine the orderly relations of the
behavior of organisms (such as rats, pigeons and humans) to their environment. He
discovered what is now called operant conditioning and articulated the now widely
accepted term reinforcement as a scientific principle of behavior. Skinner understood the
development of behavior as occurring through the effects of positive and negative
reinforcement as well as punishment and extinction. Reinforcement processes were
emphasized by Skinner, and were seen as primary in the shaping of behavior. A common
misconception is that negative reinforcement is some form of punishment. Punishment
and extinction have the effect of weakening behavior, or decreasing the probability of a
behavior reoccurring, by the application of an aversive event (punishment) or the removal
of a rewarding event (extinction). For example, a box where a pigeon or rat had to press a
button in order to receive food. Skinner found that the pigeon/rat eventually would
stumble upon the fact that pushing the button elicited a food pellet. The pigeon would
become conditioned to press the button in order to receive the pellet, and the frequency of
the conditioned response--pushing the button--would increase. At the same time, there
would also be buttons that would shock them and as they keep doing it, they would
eventually learn to stop because it hurts them.