Lecture 12 Flashcards
List the pros and cons with using an experimental method to research animals
The benefits is that it can allow one to find causal links between two variables as the other variables can be controlled for. Furthermore, you can manipulate variables, allowing one to answer questions that observations would be unable to do. For example, you can explore an animal’s cognition such as memory, ToM and processing which is impossible to do with observations. Experiments have allowed us to discover that chimps have better working memory than humans, shown via remembering the placement of numbers on a screen. We also know that macaques are good at following eye gaze.
In contrast, the main issue with experiments is that they lack ecological validity so the findings that have been found, may not be present in the wild. Thus, it needs to be constantly considered to replicate their natural environment instead of creating an anthropomorphic one.
What are the pros and cons of using an observational method to explore an animal’s behaviour?
The benefits of an observation is that you can explore spontaneous behaviour; behaviour that you may not expect or control for, which can provide unique insights. Additionally, it is high in ecological validity so you can apply it to wild populations a lot more easily.
The issues with observations are that there are complications with inferring cause and effect between 2 variables. However, it is possible for experimental conditions to be created for an observation to get close to this. For example, you can provide a specific stimulus and observe how the animals react to it.
What are the pros and cons for using wild populations in one’s research?
The benefits of this is that it is easier to generalise the results to the wider population of the species. Furthermore, it allows us to relate the behaviours to evolution more and we can see their natural behaviours.
However, the issue with using this participant demographic is that it is extremely hard to do. Furthermore, it is hard to understand which individual is which and what social hierarchy is.
What are the pros and cons for using captive populations in one’s research?
Captive populations are opportune and easy to find, they allow one to implement experimental designs and it is easier to know which individual is which.
In terms of the issues with this approach, learning and behaviour is restricted as they cannot access their full natural environment and they could be affected by human influence. However, there are not issues with sample sizes, as people assume, and sometimes the fact that a behaviour is present, even in only a few individuals, is interesting as it shows the possibility and potential of the species. Furthermore, research has found that differences in behaviour between captive and wild populations are minimal. The main difference was that captive populations rest more. One study did find differences between captive and wild populations, in that captive baboons could solve more cognitive puzzles, but this could have been because they spent more time trying as they had a necessity to engage in the task for food, whereas the wild population did not.
Discuss methodological biases
Sometimes researchers tend to focus on one aspect and forget to research others. For example, researchers explore vocalisations most in wild populations compared to gestures and facial expressions. However, when exploring captive populations, vocalisations are explored the least. Also, most research explores facial expressions from observations and experimentally tests for vocalisations. This shows that researchers can be biased towards certain methods when choosing what they explore and how they explore it. This happens with species as well, great apes are mainly tested for gestures and monkeys are mainly tested for vocals and facial expressions. Additionally, hardly any research explores lesser apes and prosimians. Due to these biases, it becomes hard to make comparisons across species, as there is significantly more research backing up one species.
Discuss pseudoreplication
This is when researchers artificially increase the sample size by pooling multiple observations from the same participant. So there is a large sample of behaviour but a small sample of individuals. This can result in false positives, aka a type 1 error, as one is more likely to get significant results for insignificant findings. Pseudoreplication is also known as the pooling fallacy. One can find out if a researcher is pseudoreplicating, as long as it is not repeated measures. This can be seen if the degrees of freedom are higher than the sample size. In 2013, Waller reviewed hundreds of studies to look for pseudoreplication and found that almost 40% of studies were guilty of it. This mainly occurs with observational studies and happens a lot when testing for monkeys. Furthermore, even as this issue becomes more well-known, the amount of studies doing it is not reducing over time, which is alarming. This issue can be eliminated when using repeated measures as the multiple observations go under one individual and if researchers are more vigilant, then they can prevent this potential false positive from occurring.
