1. Recognition Learning
Psychology 3926

2. Introduction
Basically Differential responding to something previously experienced
Could be responding in some special way the first time a certain stimulus shows up

3. Habituation Decrease in responding over time
Not too much generalization, though there is some
More presentations the better
Learning vs performance and habituation below zero
Gilette and Bellingham (1982) showed that rats learn about a stimulus
Gillette and Bellinghma, salt and sucrose compound. Drank LESS of the elements, so it is the compound they are habituated to

4. Effects on behaviour
Can be very broad, gill withdrawal to a decline in exploration
Sherrington’s Model (S-R)
Sokolov’s Model (Comparator)
Wagner’s Model (SOP)

5. Perceptual Learning
Characteristics of stimuli, not their relationship to each other
Gibson and Walk (1956)
Could be learning to associate the individual features with each other
William James thought so!
Rats with experience with a stimulus learn about them faster

6. Imprinting Lorenz said this was special as it Has a critical period
Is irreversible
Affects behaviour well into the future
Generalizes to all members of the species

7. Conditions for imprinting
Bateson’s running wheel
Simple exposure is enough usually
Sometimes it is certain features, say like the head and neck in the Burmese Red Junglefowl
The longer the exposure the better
Bateson running towards, but away from a light

8. Is this just associative learning?
Well sorta
Shows blocking, overshadowing
Still different though, sensory period, competitive exclusion
Reversible, but not totally, depends on stimulus
With sexual imprinting you can get combining\
Sexual imprinting probably isn’t….

9. Altruism I thought genes were selfish Well you thought right
Kin selection (Hamilton)
Reciprocal altruism (Trivers)
Nicest example of the effect of genetic relationships is in eusocial insects

10. Eusociality For Eusociality we need
Overlapping generations
Cooperative care of the young
Sterile castes
In insects, euscociality occurs in:
Hymenoptera
Ants
Bees
wasps

11. Eusociality Isoptera Homoptera
Termites
Homoptera
Aphids
Some say that these two are not truly eusocial, but if you look at that definition, you could, under certain circumstances, say bees were not eusocial!

12. Haplodiploidy
Eusociality has evolved 11 separate times just in Hymenoptera!
Why?
Sterile females are usually very closely related
Basically, it does not pay to have young, it pays more to take care of your sisters, as they are more closely related to you than any potential offspring!

13. Haplowhatoidy? Daughter Son Mother Father .5 .5 .5 .5 female
Sister Brother
female
male

14. Males are just clones of half of female chromosomes
So you see, sisters are either 75 % related, or 100% related or 50% related, averages out to 75 %

15. How are kin recognized? Directly? Probably not
Indirectly seems more likely
Cross fostering experiments
Belding’s ground squirrels, for example, treat familiar as kin
Not the whole story though
Phenotype matching
MHC genes
Reciprocal altruism and vampire bats

16. In conclusion
Recognition learning has some characteristics that other forms of learning do
And the opposite of that is true…