1. And Elements of Behavior
Primates
And Elements of Behavior

2. Primates
Binocular vision, well-developed cerebrum, fingers and toes, and arms that can rotate around their shoulder joints
Apes, lemurs, monkeys, humans
Human Classification
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Chordata
Class Mammalia
Order Primate
Family Hominidae
Genus Homo
Species sapiens

3. Fingers, Toes and Shoulders
Five flexible fingers
Flexible toes/digits
Opposable thumbs – allow primates to hold objects and climb
Arms rotate in broad circles around shoulder joints

4. Well-Developed Cerebrum
Display more complex behaviors than many other mammals
Social behaviors – adoption of orphans, warfare between troops

5. Binocular Vision
Eyes face forward with overlapping fields of view = binocular vision
Binocular vision – ability to merge visual images from both eyes = depth perception and three-dimensional views

6. Elements of Behavior

7. Stimulus and Response
Behavior – organism reacts to its internal condition or external environment
Simple – turning head in direction of noise
Complex – several actions taken
Stimulus – any kind of signal that carries information and can be detected – stomach “growls” = you are hungry and need to eat
Response – specific reaction to a stimulus – waking up to alarm clock
Types of Stimuli
Light, sound, odors, heat
Not all animals can detect all stimuli

8. How Animals Respond Responses vary
When an animal responds to a stimulus, body systems (including the sense organs, nervous system, and muscles) interact to produce the resulting behavior
Detect stimulus – information sent to brain via nerve cells – brain processes information – brain directs body’s response

9. Types of Behaviors 2 major types of behaviors: Innate behaviors
Learned behaviors

10. Innate Behavior
Appear in fully functional form the first time they are performed, even though the animal may have had no previous experience with the stimuli
Examples of innate behaviors: suckling of a newborn mammal, spiders weaving webs, building nests by birds
Other examples?

11. Learned Behavior
Alter behavior as a result of an experience = learning
Offspring learn behaviors from parents – elephants and their trunks
Four types of learned behavior:
Habituation
Classical conditioning
Operant conditioning
Insight learning

12. Habituation Simplest type of learning
Process by which an animal decreases or stops its response to a repetitive stimulus that neither rewards nor harms the animal
Ragworm and shadows – responds to initial shadow by retreating – more shadows = stops responding to shadows

13. Classical Conditioning
Associate stimulus with reward
Animal makes a mental connection between a stimulus and some kind of reward or punishment
Skunk and dog – dog gets sprayed once, learns not to both skunk again (hopefully…)
Pavlov’s Dogs - salivate with sound of bells

14. Pavlov’s Experiment Before Conditioning
When a dog sees or smells food, it produces saliva. Food is the stimulus and the dog’s response is salivation. Dogs do not usually salivate in response to nonfood stimuli.
After Conditioning
When Pavlov rang a bell in the absence of food, the dog still salivated. The dog was conditioned to salivate in response to a stimulus that it did not normally associate with food.
During Conditioning
By ringing a bell every time he fed the dog, Pavlov trained the dog to associate the sight and smell of food with the ringing bell.

15. Operant Conditioning “Trial-and-error” learning through practice
Animal learns to behave in a certain way through repeated practice, in order to receive a reward or avoid punishment
Used to train animals
Skinner Box – colored button inside a box – press it = food; animal learns it gets food when it presses button

16. Insight Learning
Reasoning – animal applies something it has already learned to a new situation
Most complex learning
New math problem – apply knowledge you already know to solve problem