Observational Methods 1

Question 1

Why use observational methods?:

Answer 1

1. Questionnaires of limited applicability
   · Only one animal species with language, out of millions of animal species.
   
   2. Apparatus limits generalisability
      * E.g., if behavioural measuring equipment is noticeable, then results only apply to organisms that are habituated to that apparatus.
   3. Context-dependent behaviour where context might be difficult or infeasible to replicate in controlled environments.
      · For example, behaviour of riotous mobs

Question 2

Linguistic animals:

Answer 2

· Circle graph which is almost completely yellow with a tiny black slice
· Demonstrates that there is only linguistic animals (humans) among millions of non-linguistic animals
- Questionnaires of limited use, one needs observational methods with non-humans

Question 3

Lana the chimpanzee - Rumbaugh, 1977:

Answer 3

· Lana was being trained to use the keyboard to request activities, food, and drink
· The chimpanzee is embedded in a highly technical environment
· Results from studies of this chimpanzee are not generalisable to other chimpanzees.

Question 4

Rat in Skinner box:

Answer 4

· Heavy reliance on rat performance in a Skinner box limits generalisability to rats in similar testing circumstances.
· Observational methods allow us to view rats in many different contexts.

Question 5

Spelman et al, 1991:

Answer 5

· Complex schematic of the technological system supporting data collection in a study of simultaneous physiology and behaviour

Question 6

Spelman et al, 1991 - heart rate:

Answer 6

· Staying relatively steady at 120 beats-per-minute while the animals is at rest
· Rapidly increasing from the moment the animal starts running to about 185 BPM.

Question 7

Spelman et al, 1991 - blood pressure:

Answer 7

· Staying relatively steady at about 107 millimetres of mercury until about 12 seconds when a relatively steep rise in blood pressure begins
· Peaks at about 114 mmHg at about 17 seconds into the record, then rapidly declines to about 106 mmHg even while the animal continues to run.

Question 8

Spelman et al, 1991 - renal flow:

Answer 8

· While sitting, it is steady at around 4.7 kHz, but at the moment of transition to running, it plummets quickly to a low of 3.6kHz at 19 seconds, then rising slightly to 3.8 kHz in the final second.

Question 9

Spelman et al, 1991 - femoral flow:

Answer 9

· Pattern is opposite of that shown by the renal flow data
· Steady rate around 2.2 kHz while sitting rises steeply from the moment of transition to running, to about 3.7 kHz by the end of the record

Question 10

Spelman et al, 1991 - 2:

Answer 10

· Scientific breakthrough
· Allow scientists to examine both internal physiology and external behaviour simultaneously.

Question 11

Human behavioural coder - Spelman:

Answer 11

· Essential component is the human being who is applying the coding scheme to the behaviour of the monkeys.
· Need a trained human being to allocate behavioural codes to behaviour.
· On the verge of being able to automatically categorise behaviour, but existing systems for doing this are relatively unreliable or expensive or both.
· Human judgements is a key component in behavioural measuring systems

Question 12

Riotous mobs:

Answer 12

· Some behaviours cannot be studied in controlled, laboratory conditions.

Question 13

Are observational data necessarily subjective?:

Answer 13

· Female chimpanzee named Elvira
· Elvira displays a complex series of communicative actions apparently to try to capture the attention of the human.
· Elvira displayed both persistence and elaboration
· It is easy to achieve impressive inter-observer reliability despite a complete lack of prior training
· Observational methods are not necessarily weak or unreliable.

Question 14

Joint attention as neurocognitive adaption - derived from human adaptation for speech:

Answer 14

· “. . . no infrahuman animal is known to point. . . ” (Werner & Kaplan, 1963, p. 78).
· “. . . pointing with the outstretched arm and index finger at objects in visual space seems to be unique to humans” (Corballis, 1993[1991], p. 157).
· “. . . pointing is a species-specific form of reference that is basic to human nonverbal communication” (Butterworth, 1995, p. 335).
· “The pointing gesture is exclusively human, and universal within mankind” (Degos, 2001, p. 263).
· “. . . human index-finger pointing is biologically based and species-specific” (Butterworth, 2003, p. 28).
· “Index-finger pointing is apparently unique to humans” (Masataka, 2003, p. 69).

Question 15

Steps in observational research - Observational stream:

Answer 15

1. Ask
   
   2. Observe informally
   3. Choose measures
   4. Choose recording method
   5. Collect and analyse data
      * Science is an iterative process, that finding some answers usually raises more questions

Question 16

Steps in observational research - experimental stream:

Answer 16

1. Ask
   
   2. Hypothesise
   3. Predict
   4. Design
   5. Run the experiment
   6. Analyse the results
   7. Interpret the findings

Question 17

Audience effects on pointing by three chimpanzees:

Answer 17

• Graph showing the percent of pointing gestures by Clint and his two cage mates in the absence and in the presence of a human observer.
  
  • Out of the 256 pointing gestures we observed, only 2 were displayed in the absence of the human observer
  • These alleged pointing gestures were not simply failed attempts to reach for the food, but intentionally communicative acts.

Question 18

Ask Questions:

Answer 18

• Usually, the more YOU know about the published literature in an area, the more sophisticated your questions are, BUT if you are one of the first people asking a specific question, then even simple questions are scientifically valuable, indeed necessary.

Question 19

Observe Informally (a.k.a. ad libitum sampling):

Answer 19

· Get to know your subject pool first hand.

Question 20

Recording Methods:

Answer 20

Answers the questions, “When and how do you sample behaviour?”

Question 21

Choose Measures:

Answer 21

· Not only will you be sampling from a population, you will be sampling behaviour from a large set of possible responses.
· Don’t code for behaviour that does not directly speak to your research question.
· Balance what you want to do against what you can practically do. Answers the question, “What to measure?”

Question 22

Choosing measures - define the measures with either:

Answer 22

· Operational definitions:
- specify the physical requirements for coding a behaviour (e.g., a lever press by a rat, a button press by a pigeon, or code a finger extension whenever one or more of a chimpanzee’s digits breaks the plane of the cage mesh), or
· Ostensive definitions:
- provide examples through pictures or diagrams, along with written descriptions of the behaviour of interest (e.g., coordinated play versus solitary play).

Question 23

Choosing measures - classify your measures as either:

Answer 23

· Events:
- Occurrences, usually, but not necessarily of short duration - approximated as points in time
· States:
- Relatively long-duration events - such as sleep or play