Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
大學部 生態學與保育生物學學程 (必選) 2010 年 秋冬 學習與認知 (Learning and Cognition) ─動物行為學 (Ethology) 鄭先祐(Ayo) 國立 臺南大學 環境與生態學院 生態科學與技術學系 教授 Ayo NUTN Web: http://myweb.nutn.edu.tw/~hycheng/ Part 1. 動物行為的研究途徑 (個體行為) 歷史背景 (History of the Study of Animal Behavior ). 基因分析 (Genetic Analysis of Behavior ). 天擇 (Natural Selection and Behavior ). 學習與認知 (Learning and Cognition.) 生理分析 (Physiological Analysis) (一) 神經細胞 (Nerve Cells and Behavior ). (二) 內分泌系統 (The Endocrine System). 發育(The Development of Behavior ). Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 2 05 學習與認知 (Learning and cognition) Definition of Learning Types of Learning Habituation (習慣) Classical conditioning Operant conditioning Latent Learning Social Learning Species differences in Learning Comparative Studies Other Evidence of Cognitive abilities in animals Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 3 People have presuppositions about the mental lives of animals We discount the abilities of some species Especially those very different than us We anthropomorphize our pets and other primates We assume that they think like we do How do we know what animals know? Does a chimpanzee plans its actions to catch termites? Does an ant lion(蟻獅) understand its own behavior Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 4 Definition of Learning It is “a process through which experience changes an individual’s behavior” Learning is a change in our capacity for behavior as a result of experience Excluding the effects of fatigue, sensory adaptation, or maturation of the nervous system Behavioral changes resulting from learning are not always expressed immediately We can’t know whether an animal has learned something just by seeing a change in its behavior Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 5 A type of learning: habituation In habituation, the animal learns not to respond to a particular stimulus Because the stimulus has proven to be harmless Habituation: the waning of a response after repeated presentation of a stimulus. Once it occurs, its effects are long lasting Habituation is everywhere, from protozoans to humans It is often considered the simplest form of learning Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 6 Habituation in the clamworm (沙蠶) 雙齒圍沙蠶(Nereis succinea)是一種廣泛分佈 的多毛綱動物。 It partially emerges from its tube to filter tiny bits of food from the water withdraws into its tube when it senses danger (i.e. a shadow) In the lab, subsequent presentations decreased escape responses The clamworms had habituated The effects lasted several hours Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 7 Habituation of the withdrawal response to a shadow by the clamworm. Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 8 Habituation is not due to adaptation The clamworms’ decline in responsiveness was not because the sense organs became adapted to the stimulus Nor was the decline due to muscle fatigue, because habituated worms still withdrew in response to prodding The clamworms had learned to stop responding to the shadow Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 9 Habituation is specific to a particular stimulus Young turkeys, chickens, and pheasants innately show antipredator behaviors They crouch and give alarm calls at the sight of objects moving overhead When a model was presented frequently, it elicited fewer and fewer alarm calls from chicks As adults, they respond only to the image of a predator Such as a hawk flying overhead Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 10 Habituation also occurs in species interactions Territorial species reduce aggressive responses toward neighbors, But still respond aggressively toward unfamiliar intruders Bird species and bullfrogs respond aggressively to a recording of a stranger’s call but not to a familiar call Habituation mediates this process Animals stop responding to a call when its heard repeatedly The decline was specific to the calls Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 11 Habituation as an experimental tool Habituation is a useful tool to study cognitive processes in animals, including humans A subject is habituated to a stimulus And then a new stimulus is presented If the subject’s response changes The experimenter knows it can detect the difference between the two stimuli Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 12 A type of learning: classical conditioning Associative learning: an animal makes an association between a stimulus and a response One type of associative learning: classical conditioning (Pavlov dog) A dog salivates when powdered food is blown into its mouth, but not when it hears a bell These two stimuli are paired immediately before food powder was presented The dog salivates in response to the bell alone Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 13 Classical conditioning explained Unconditioned stimulus (US): an animal has an inborn response to a certain stimulus The animal did not have to learn the response Unconditioned response (UR): the response to the US Conditioned stimulus (CS): a new stimulus is paired with the US until eventually it, too, can elicit the response Conditioned response (CR): the response to the conditioned stimulus Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 14 Classical conditioning is consistent The order of the presentation of the US and CS is important The two stimuli must occur close together Useful signals are reliable They predict that a particular event or stimulus will follow An association between a CS and US can be lost If the CS is no longer reliable, the subject stops responding Extinction: the loss of the conditioned response Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 15 The adaptive value of classical conditioning Learning through classical conditioning provides fitness advantages to wild animals Few studies have addressed the value of classical conditioning in the everyday life of an animal The territorial and reproductive behaviors in blue gouramis (fish that inhabit shallow pools and streams in Africa and Southeast Asia) Sperm production in male field crickets Feeding behavior in honeybees Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 16 案例:the blue gourami (三星鬥魚) A male blue gourami defends its territory aggressively The intruder may respond with a submissive posture or retreat If not, the contest escalates into a battle that can result in serious injury Dangerous fights evolve when the value of the resource is great Success is crucial for males because females won’t mate with a male without a territory Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 17 Blue gourami (三星鬥魚) learning With victory, a male blue gourami gains an immediate competitive edge and experience Increasing the probability of winning future battles If a male could learn the signals (visual, chemical, or mechanical) that indicate the approach of a rival He might be better prepared for battle and gain a competitive edge Males that had been classically conditioned to associate a light with the imminent appearance of a rival were superior in territorial defense Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 18 The “winner effect” Successful males are more likely to attract females But excessive aggressiveness harms mating success A male conditioned to expect the arrival of a female is less likely to attack her (研究者使用「光」) Classical conditioning pays off in reproductive success In nature, other cues (i.e. the shape of a gravid belly) for may be a reliable cue of a willing female’s approach. Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 19 Conditioned blue gourami males have higher reproductive success Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 20 案例:male field crickets Female field crickets mate more than once Sperm from different males compete inside her body to fertilize her eggs A male increases his chances of fathering more offspring by transferring more sperm to the female Males can learn to associate environmental cues with the presence of male competitors Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 21 Field crickets learned about spatial cues that signaled the presence of a competitor. Male produced larger sperm packets in the environment associated with a competitor. Lego bricks Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 22 案例:feeding honeybees A foraging Bee can be rapidly conditioned to respond to odor When the antennae of a bee are touched with a sucrose solution (the US), the bee extends its proboscis to lick it (the UR) When an odor is presented just before the sucrose solution is presented, the bee rapidly forms an association between the odor (the CS) and the sucrose And begins to extend its proboscis to the odor alone Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 23 Operant (instrumental) conditioning Another form of associative learning It is also called trial-and-error learning When cats inside a “puzzle box” accidentally hit a lever in the correct way, the door would open, and the cat would get to eat Over successive trials, a cat would get faster and faster at performing the correct behavior to release the latch This type of learning emphasizes that the animal operates on the environment to produce consequences Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 24 The Skinner box Easier to use than Thorndike’s puzzle box It’s still used today A hungry animal inside the Skinner box must learn to manipulate a mechanism (pressing a lever or pecking a key) To get a food reward Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 25 Reinforcers Reinforcer: a stimulus, such as a bit of food, that changes the probability that an animal will repeat its behavior Positive reinforcer: increases the probability of a behavior being repeated, such as food offered to a hungry rat or a drink to a thirsty one Negative reinforcer: increases the probability of a response once it is removed If an unpleasant or painful stimulus stops when an animal performs a certain act, it is likely to repeat that action It’s different than punishment: a decrease in a response due to the presentation of an aversive stimulus Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 26 Timing of events is critical In operant conditioning and classical conditioning When the animal spontaneously performs a behavior, reinforcement must follow closely When reinforcement is withheld, the response rate gradually declines and become extinguished Just as the strength of the conditioned reflex decreases when the CS is presented many times without the US Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 27 Shaping (導引化) Operant conditioning can be used to teach animals to perform novel and complex acts Shaping: used by Hollywood animal trainers At first, the trainer reinforces any approximation of the desired act Later, it requires better performances to get a reward To train a sea lion to jump through a hoop, first reward it for approaching the hoop Then reward it only when it swims through the hoop Raise the hoop on successive trials Offer the sea lion a fish only when it makes the leap Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 28 Reinforcement(增強作用) schedules Realistically, the reward does not follow every performance of an act Reinforcement schedule: the frequency with which rewards are offered Reinforcement schedules can change Each reinforcement schedule has predictable effects On the rate of response and On how long the animal continues responding when it is no longer rewarded Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 29 Reinforcement schedules A continuous reinforcement schedule: each occurrence of the behavior is rewarded Is best during the initial training to establish a response A fixed ratio schedule: the animal must respond a set number of times before being rewarded Very high response rates because the individual determines how quickly it will be rewarded A variable ratio schedule: the number of responses required for reinforcement varies randomly The individual is rewarded for fast responses The response persists even if the reward is withheld Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 30 Latent(潛伏) learning Sometimes animals learn without any obvious reward When animals learn important characteristics of their environment during unrewarded explorations, they can use this information later Familiarity with the terrain(地形) improves survival Knowledge of the environment helps them evade predators Even ants gather information for later use Ants evaluate prospective nest sites based on a range of criteria: floor area, headroom, entrance size, darkness, hygiene, and the proximity of hostile neighbors Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 31 Ants keep track of local housing options If a nest is destroyed, ants must quickly find another one Ants ignore a familiar but unattractive option in favor of exploring for a better one Even if they ultimately settle for something that is also unattractive In latent learning, animals didn’t learn an appropriate behavior, but they learned something about their environment So they could respond appropriately in a new situation Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 32 The experimental design for a study of latent learning in ants. Alternative nest #1 was added for a week. Then a second nest (#2) was added. Ants choose #2. Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 33 Social learning Learning from others is not part of every animal’s behavioral repertoire Social species have a greater opportunity for social learning than do solitary species Social learning encompasses a broad range of phenomena Some of which suggest a higher level of cognitive skill (認知 能力) on the part of the animal than do others Animals may inadvertently provide information to other animals Or, individuals share information through specific signals Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 34 Social learning: stimulus enhancement Information may not be actively communicated by one animal to another In stimulus enhancement: an animal may be attracted to a particular object because a conspecific is near it or interacting with it For example, rats learn dietary preferences(飲食嗜好) from other rats by smelling their breath Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 35 Social learning: local enhancement In local enhancement: an animal may be attracted to a particular location because a conspecific is there In nature, local and stimulus enhancement occur frequently during foraging Bumblebees (大黃蜂) land on flowers already occupied by other bees Other animals also use conspecifics as cues to good foraging patches Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 36 Observational conditioning A type of classical conditioning that occurs in social situations Animals learn to avoid dangerous situations by watching conspecifics Rhesus monkeys learn to fear and avoid snakes by watching other monkeys show their fear Minnows (米諾魚) learn to show fear responses to pike (狗魚) odor when they are paired with minnows that had experience with pike Observational learning does not assume that observers understand anything about the mental state of the animals they are learning from Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 37 Goal-directed emulation (仿效) An observer seems to learn from observation what goal is to be achieved, but does not copy precisely what the demonstrator does Chimpanzees and children both watched an adult human retrieve(回收) artificial fruit from a clear plastic box Chimps showed goal-directed emulation: they directed their attention at the correct part of the box but did not imitate the action of the demonstrator Children imitated (模仿) the actions of the human exactly Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 38 Imitation (模仿) An observer copies exactly what a demonstrator does In the two-action test, the subject is presented with a task that has two equally easy solutions If subjects choose the solution they have seen demonstrated, it is evidence of imitation Observer budgerigars(鸚鵡, budgies) watched demonstrator budgies open a dish The observer used the same technique it had just witnessed Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 39 The adaptive value of social learning The adaptive value of social learning is clear It saves time and energy that might be wasted as an individual learns the business of survival by trial and error Each individual may have the capacity to learn appropriate responses But it is more efficient and less dangerous to learn about the world from others Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 40 Animals learn from each other Rats learn about food by smelling each other’s breath and by observation A rat will try novel food if it observes another rat eating it Other species may learn routes to food from conspecifics Guppies (孔雀魚) learn a safe route by swimming in groups Animals also learn from other species Group-foraging doves (野鴿) in Barbados learn from other doves But territorial doves learn from Carib grackles, the species they feed with in mixed flocks Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 41 Traditions (傳統) Traditions: spread through a group and are stable over time In England around 1921, blue tits learned to break into milk bottles to steal the cream, which floated to the top This spread through Great Britain as other birds acquired the habit Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 42 Traditions spread through groups of primates Young chimpanzees in nature learn to use sticks and stems to gather termites after watching their mothers or other adults A young female snow monkey discovered that washing sweet potatoes (provided by researchers) in the sea cleaned them and enhanced the flavor by lightly salting it The tradition spread to others Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 43 Individual vs. social learning It is hard to tell between individual learning (learning through one’s own experience) and social learning They may occur simultaneously For example, sweet potato washing may occur through stimulus enhancement A monkey picks up a dropped potato that has been washed, like the taste, and then is primed to learn to wash potatoes Differential reinforcement may also maintain the behavior Human caretakers give more sweet potatoes to members of the troop that wash them Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 44 Comparative studies of species differences For decades, the dominant view in studying learning was that it occurred in essentially the same way across mammal species Many characteristics of learning are similar in many species In recent years, researchers have been intrigued not just by similarities across species, but also their differences Several studies documenting differences across species correlates with the ecological conditions they face Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 45 Learned knowledge is not genetically heritable In some species, offspring learn from watching their parents A jumping spider (跳蛛) can learn that milkweed bugs (椿象) are not good to eat and ignores them This knowledge is not passed onto to the spider’s offspring Spiders must learn this for themselves Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 46 The ability to learn as a heritable trait What is heritable, and subject to natural selection, is the capacity to learn The heritability of the ability to learn has been demonstrated Fruit flies that had learned the association between quinine and a particular flavor avoided that flavor, and laid their eggs on a neutral flavor After 15 generations, flies from these selected lines learned the task faster and remember it longer than were control flies Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 47 Learning has costs Learning allows an animal to adjust its behavior to new situations. This ability may not always be advantageous - it has its costs It takes time to learn Innate behaviors save the time and trouble of making mistakes The ability to learn requires neurons dedicated to the task Neurons could be devoted to something else (i.e. large olfactory centers to detect and interpret scents left by prey) Learning has an “operating cost”—it takes energy to collect, process and store information Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 48 Species differ in learning ability The environment and evolutionary history of a species influences how learning increases Darwinian fitness The relative number of offspring left by an individual There are biological constraints on learning Members of a particular species may be able to learn certain things and not others Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 49 Species differences in learning ability Three related species of birds - Clark’s nutcrackers, pinyon jays, and scrub jays - cache (store) seeds The birds recover and eat the seeds during winter and spring when food is scarce They remember the exact locations, months after they’ve hidden them Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 50 ←The Clark‘s Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana), is a large passerine bird, in the family Corvidae (鴉科). ↓The Pinyon Jay (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) is a jay between the North American Blue Jay and the Eurasian Jay in size. ← The Florida Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) is one of the species of scrub-jay native to North America.. Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 51 Bird ecology influences seed storage Clark’s nutcrackers cache thousands of pine seeds in thousands of locations They live at high elevations with harsh, long winters They survive almost entirely on stored seeds Pinyon jays cache fewer seeds, closer to the collecting site Most of their winter diet consists of cached seeds Scrub jays store the fewest seeds Seeds comprise less than 60% of the winter diet Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 52 Seed caching Ecological differences among caching species predict that: Species that rely on caching to survive the winter have a better spatial memory Nutcrackers and pinyon jays Depend most on finding stored seeds to survive the winter Did better than scrub jays in finding stored seeds Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 53 Histograms that show the accuracy with which scrub jays, pinyon jays, and Clark’s nutcrackers find their caches. The solid bar, 15 holes were available for caching. The striped bar, 90 holes were available. Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 54 Learning is shaped by natural selection • Clark’s nutcracker was the champion on a spatial task • There were no species differences in memory on a nonspatial task • Remembering the color of a circle was not related to the species’ dependence on stored food Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 55 Comparison of learning abilities among food-storing on spatial and nonspatial tasks. (a) location of circle (b) the color of circle. Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 56 Comparison of learning abilities among food-storing on spatial and nonspatial tasks. (a) location of circle (b) the color of circle. Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 57 Food storing in other species supports the hypothesis that evolution shapes learning ability is found among other groups of related species Titmice and chickadees, a family of birds distinct from nutcrackers and jays, store seeds and insects They performed better than non-food-storing species in tests Mammals show a relationship between ecology and spatial skills The Great Basin kangaroo rat does not store food, while Merriam’s kangaroo rat does The Merriam’s kangaroo rat performed better on a spatial test than the Great Basin rat Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 58 The tits, chickadees, and titmice constitute Paridae(山雀科), a large family of small passerine birds which occur in the northern hemisphere and Africa. Most were formerly classified in the genus Parus. The Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) is a small, common songbird, a passerine bird in the tit family (山雀科). It is the state bird of both Maine and Massachusetts, and the provincial Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 59 Kangaroo rats, genus Dipodomys, are small rodents native to North America. Dipodomys microps Chisel-toothed Kangaroo Rat Dipodomys merriami Mearns Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 60 Evidence of cognitive abilities in animals Some scientists wonder whether animals have mental experiences i.e. thoughts and feelings How can we know whether other animals think or whether they are self-aware? Evidence for cognitive abilities(認知能力) includes: Tool use (工具使用) Insight (洞察力) Detours (繞道) Understanding abstract concepts(抽象概念), including self-awareness (自我意識) Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 61 Tool use (工具使用) Tool use: the use of an object in order to obtain a goal Once considered a hallmark trait that separated humans from other animals, tool use is now known in many species For example, a sea otter (海獺) uses a rock to break a clam shell A vulture (禿鷹) drops a rock on an egg, which cracks open Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 62 Does an animal have to understand how a tool works in order to use it? Tool use seems to demonstrate a high level of cognition (認知) Animals using a tool to solve a problem often appear to be thinking it through Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 63 Sultan’s tool use Sultan learned to use a stick as a tool to rake in a banana from outside his cage He learned to join two sticks to reach a banana When the sticks separated, he immediately rejoined them This is evidence that he understood that joining two poles increased his reach Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 64 Insight (洞察力) Insight: a situation where a flash of understanding occurs As seen in the suddenness of Sultan’s solution to obtaining a banana The animal may see new relationships among events And consider the problem as a whole Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 65 Animals may form a mental representation of the problem and then mentally work through solutions But, all the details of an animal’s prior experience need to be known to understand what it knows when it manipulates objects Seemingly insightful behavior might be specific stimulus–response relationships learned through operant conditioning To reach meat suspended on a string, a raven (烏鴉) had to repeatedly pull up a loop of string, step on the loop, and then reach down and pull up another loop Some birds can be taught by operant conditioning Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 66 Raven (烏鴉) Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus (烏 鴉). New Caledonia crows→ Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 67 Insightful behavior in common ravens (烏鴉) But, some ravens solved the problem immediately Without going through a learning process It is unlikely that this complicated behavior was learned, was genetically programmed, or occurred by chance The ravens apparently have the ability to find insightful solutions to new problems, using string as a tool Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 68 Insight alone may not always be enough Familiarity with a simpler task may be required to succeed on a new task If a string with food was looped up and through the cage, then down again The birds had to pull the string down to raise the meat Ravens familiar with the pull-up task could quickly do the pull-down task But naive birds could not Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 69 Animals may understand causal relationships New Caledonia crows make and use tools out of twigs and leaves In the lab, one crow made a hook from a straight piece of wire to extract a bucket (提桶) from a tube Crows may understand that tools can be used to obtain out-of-reach objects, even other tools Video cameras attached to wild crows revealed that crows keep good tools for future use Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 70 Species differ in their ability to understand Capuchin monkeys (卷尾猴) learned to push a stick into a tube to push a peanut out When a trap was placed into the tube, the monkey had to push the stick into the correct end No monkeys fully grasped the task Chimpanzees, in contrast, showed more understanding of the task Human children under three years old behave more like capuchins Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 71 Capuchin monkeys 卷尾猴屬(學名: Cebus),是卷尾猴 科的一屬,也叫懸猴, 分佈於北起中美宏都 拉斯,南到南美中部 (巴西中部、秘魯東 部和巴拉圭)的狹長 地帶。 Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 72 The tube task but with a trap added. The stick must be inserted in a particular end of the tube. Here, a capuchin monkey is about to make an error. Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 73 黑猩猩 (Chimpanzees) Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 74 Tool use in humans Tools are of great importance in human evolution We can gain some insight into our own past by examining the behavior of our close relatives Chimpanzees are accomplished tool users They use sticks to forage for termites and rocks as a hammer and anvil to pound open nuts Foraging and hunting were probably the first contexts in which our ancestors used tools Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 75 Detours (繞道) Detouring: the ability to identify an alternative route to a reward when the direct route is blocked Animals can improve on detour tests with experience Dogs are not very good at solving detour problems often dig under a fence instead of going around it Squirrels are very good at solving detour problems They choose certain branches to get from tree to tree Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 76 Quail (鵪鶉) and herring gulls easily solved a detour problem that required them to walk around a barrier, but canaries (金絲雀) could not Canaries can fly around an object Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 77 How do animals solve detour tasks? Portia jumping spiders (跳蛛) excel (勝過) at detours Their large anterior eyes are specialized for acute vision They hunt other spiders by climbing into their webs and luring(誘惑) them with signals similar to those of prey Portia can spot spider webs from some distance away To reach its prey it must perform a detour Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 78 Portia jumping spiders Portia is a genus of jumping spider which feeds on other spiders (araneophagic). They are remarkable for their hunting behaviour which suggests they are capable of learning and problem solving, traits normally attributed to much larger animals. Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 79 Portia spiders use detours Before setting out, Portia can Choose correctly between detours that lead to prey versus those that do not Portia looks at the lure(目標), then slowly scans along the features of the potential route If the route ends, the spider turns back to look at the lure again, and begins again Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 80 Understanding abstract concepts Many animals can discriminate relative numbers i.e. is there more fruit on this tree or that tree? The ability to count is more difficult To assign a tag such as “1, 2, 3,” to individual quantities The ability to count things demonstrates some understanding of the abstract concept of numbers Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 81 Alex, a remarkable parrot Alex, an African grey parrot, learned labels (names) for over 35 different objects He could identify, request, refuse, or comment on more than 100 different objects Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 82 Alex understood abstract concepts He used language to show he understood abstract concepts He could: Say how many items were in a group of up to 6 items, even if the objects were scattered around a tray Count items in a confounded number set (items that vary in more than one characteristic) Add up the total from two sequentially presented collections Alex had some understanding of the concept of zero Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 83 Sheba, an amazing chimpanzee Using a touch screen, Sheba can indicate the Arabic numeral that describes a group of objects She can add numbers: If three small groups of objects are put in three separate places around the room, she can visit them in turn and then correctly choose the numeral that represents the sum If the three groups of objects are replaced with numeral cards she can still choose the numeral that represents the correct total Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 84 Animals understand concepts Alex understood the concepts of same and different Brain size does not reliably indicate the ability of animals to do tasks such as concept learning Alex’s brain was the size of a walnut Bees can learn to distinguish between same and different Pigeons form concepts such as “tree” or “water” or “human” Pigeons can identify an example of a particular category, such as a person They recognize water in various forms: a droplet, a river, a lake Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 85 Self-recognition and perspective taking The “mark test” examines if an animal recognizes itself After a mark is placed on its face, the animal is shown a mirror If the subject recognizes itself, it sees that it has an odd mark, and touches and grooms toward the marked area Species that have passed the mark test Chimpanzees Dolphins turn their bodies to inspect marks in the mirror Asian elephants touch marks with their trunks Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 86 Do animals have a concept of self? We can ask whether animals can take the perspective of other individuals And understand what others know and do not know When given a choice, subordinate chimpanzees selected a piece of food not visible to the dominant individual The subordinate was aware of which piece of food the dominant could see Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 87 The “theory of mind” There is a growing literature on “seeing and knowing” and the attribution of knowledge and mental states Many species have been tested with a range of clever experiments. A compelling idea about the evolution of the “theory of mind:” is that it is driven by social complexity The social environment creates new selection pressures for the evolution of “social intelligence” The ability to learn and keep track of relationships among other individuals may be evolutionarily advantageous Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 88 Summary Learning: a change in behavior as a result of experience Excluding maturation of the nervous system, fatigue, or sensory adaptation Learning is divided into: habituation, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, latent and social learning The ability to learn has a genetic basis Animals demonstrate cognitive skills in tasks besides learning Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 89 Tools are objects that an animal uses to reach a goal Detour behavior: an animal takes an indirect route to a goal Many animals understand abstract concepts Some animals recognize themselves Some understand that others do not have the same knowledge Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 90 問題與討論 [email protected] Ayo 台南 NUTN 站 http://myweb.nutn.edu.tw/~hycheng/ Ayo 教材 (動物行為學 2010) 91