Behaviour Flashcards
(31 cards)
What is an innate behaviour?
A behaviour that is inherent in an organism.
Give some examples of innate behaviours.
Reflex, kinesis, taxis.
Define reflex.
Rapid, automatic response to a sensory stimulus by the body.
Serves as a protective mechanism.
What is kinesis?
A non-directional movement response to a stimulus in which the whole organism moves faster and changes direction, e.g. in response to a dry environment, woodlice move faster and change direction more often.
What is a taxis?
A directional movement response to a stimulus, e.g woodlice move away from a light source.
What is a learned behaviour?
A permanent change in an organism’s behaviour as a result of experience.
What is habituation?
Type of learned behaviour. Repetition of a non-harmful/non-beneficial stimulus desensitises an organism by reducing the release of neurotransmitter. The organism no longer responds.
Describe imprinting.
The type of learned behaviour that occurs during early development.
Young animal attaches to first large moving object is sees/hears/smells/touches.
Reinforced by subsequent rewards such as food, warmth and protection.
What are associative behaviours?
Behaviours in which an organism associates a specific stimulus with a certain action or response.
State the two types of associative behaviours.
Classical conditioning.
Operant conditioning.
Describe classical and operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning - the association of a natural stimulus with an artificial stimulus to induce the same response.
Operant conditioning - the association of a behaviour with a reward or punishment.
What is latent learning?
A type of learning that occurs in the absence of external reinforcement, e.g. learning information during the exploration of new surroundings.
What is insight learning?
A type of learning that occurs suddenly through the understanding of relationships between previously learned information.
Describe imitation.
Form of learning in which an animal copies the behaviour of another animal. Enables knowledge and behavioural traits to be passed down from generation to generation.
Give an example of an imitation behaviour.
Some populations of chimpanzees use sticks to crack nuts whereas other populations use stones.
What do social behaviours rely on?
Communication between animals.
What is a fixed action pattern (FAP)?
An instinctive behavioural sequence in response to a sign stimulus.
Give an example of a fixed action pattern (FAP).
Begging in gull chicks in response to the sight of the red spot on its parents’ beak.
What does the response of an individual to a sign stimulus depend on?
Its motivational state.
Give some examples of organisms that live in colonies.
Social insects such as bees, ants and termites.
What is a caste?
A group of closely-related individuals within a social insect colony with a specific role, e.g. finding food or defending the colony.
Give some examples of castes in a honeybee colony.
Queen - single fertile female.
Workers - thousands of sterile females.
Drones - hundreds of fertile males.
How do individuals within a colony communicate?
Touch, pheromones, visual displays (such as dances).
Describe how worker bees communicate the position of a nectar source.
Perform dances in the hive:
Source less than 70m from hive - round dance, doesn’t indicate direction.
Source more than 70m from the hive - waggle dance, indicates distance and direction.
