Outline for Test One

Animal Behavior

I. Principles of Animal Behavior

a. Ethology

b. Four Questions (Tinbergen)

i. Proximate

1. Cause

2. Origin

ii. Ultimate

1. Cause

2. Origin

c. Foundations

i. Natural Selection

ii. Learning

iii. Cultural Transmission

d. Approaches

i. Conceptual

ii. Theoretical

iii. Empirical

II. Natural Selection

a. Artificial Selection

b. Terminology

i. Phenotype

ii. Genotype

iii. Environment

iv. Allele

v. Gene

c. Natural Selection

i. Requirements

1. Variation

a. Mutation

b. Recombination

c. Migration

2. Fitness Consequences

3. Heritability

a. Broad Sense

b. Narrow Sense

c. Measuring Heritability (trade-offs to each method)

i. Response to Selection

ii. Parent-offspring regression

d. Sociobiology

e. Levels of Selection

f. Examples

i. Reznick’s guppies

ii. Brood parasitism

g. Adaptation

III. Proximate Factors

a. Hormones

i. Geoff Hill’s Finches

ii. Chemical Signal involving ductless glands

iii. Parent/offspring conflict

iv. Hormone: chemical substance produced by ductless glands, carried by the circulatory system.

v. Interactions

1. Synergism

2. Antagonism

vi. Methods

1. Extirpation

2. Hormone Replacement

3. Excess hormone provision

4. Antagonist

5. Blood Transfusion

6. Bioassay

7. Radioimmunoassay

8. Autoradiography

9. immunoneutralization

vii. Organizational effects

viii. Activational effects

b. Neurology

i. How neurons work

ii. Types of Receptors

1. chemo

2. mechano

3. thermo

4. photo

iii. Filtering

1. peripheral

2. central

iv. Methods

1. transection (ablation)

2. stimulation

3. lesioning

4. functional neuroanatomy

5. psychopharmacology

6. cannulation

7. transplantation

8. Metabolic activity (MRI, PET)

c. Genetics

i. Evidence

1. fossils

2. adaptive radiation

3. domestication (artificial selection)

4. cladistics

ii. Tests

1. find gene

2. find G*E interaction

IV. Learning

a. Defined

b. Phenotypic plasticity

c. How animals learn

i. Single stimulus learning

ii. Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)

1. CS

2. US

3. CR

4. UR

5. types of stimuli

a. aversive

b. appetitive

6. second order conditioning

7. blocking

8. overshadowing

iii. Instrumental (Operant) Conditioning (Skinner)

1. Law of Effect

2. Types of contingencies

a. Negative

i. Negative reinforcement

ii. punishment

b. Positive

i. Positive reinforcement

ii. Omission

3. Superstition

4. Discriminitive Stimulus

5. Backward chaining

6. Salience of reinforcer

7. Punishment principles

a. Intensity

b. Delay

c. Certainty

d. Increasing intensity effects

e. Additional contingencies

f. Reducing natural reinforcement

g. Alternative contingencies

8. Schedules of Reinforcement

a. FI – Fixed Interval

b. FR – Fixed Ratio

c. VI – Variable Interval

d. VR – Variable Ratio

9. Methods

a. Between species

b. Within species

i. Extinction

ii. Adaptive landscapes

c. Within population

10. Influence of types of information

11. Training success and types of response

12. Predictability and adaptive value of learning (Stephens)

13. What to learn

a. Home

b. Mates

c. Recognition

d. food

V. Social Learning and Cultural Transmission

a. Examples

i. Macaques

ii. Chimpanzees

b. What is Cultural transmission?

i. Culture defined (Romanes)

ii. How is this different?

c. Types of cultural transmission

i. Social learning

1. local enhancement

2. social facilitation

3. contagion

4. imitation (observational learning)

5. copying

a. extrinsic rewards

b. intrinsic rewards

d. Teaching

i. Defined

ii. examples

e. Modes of cultural transmission

i. Vertical

ii. Horizontal

iii. Oblique

f. Genes and cultural transmission

i. Finches

ii. Whales

iii. Study of genes

iv. Culture and brain size