Learning and Cultural Transmission

Which is smarter?

Why Animals Learn????______________- The ability to produce different phenotypes depending on environmental condtions.

Length of LifespanChanging Conditions

Why NOT learn?It’s expensive!

What animals learn…Where home is locatedWhat food they should eat or avoid

Learning about your mateLearning about Familial relationships

Learning about aggression

Non-Associative Learning

Associative Learning

Habituation and Sensitization

Spatial Learning

Imprinting

Classical Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

Innate

Cultural Transmission

Horizontal

Lateral

Oblique

Social Faciliation

Local Enhancement

Social Learning

Copying

Imitation

TEACHING

Non-AssociativeSensitization – Becoming more sensitive to a stimulus over time (rubbing your arm)

Habituation – Becoming less sensitive to a stimulus over time (sound of cars by your house).

Spatial Learning

Associative Learning Basics:StimulusResponse

Unconditioned Stimulus (US) – The stimulus that naturally elicits the behavior (dog food).

Conditioned Stimulus (CS) – The one the dog is learning (The bell)

Conditioned Response – response from conditioned stimulus (Dog salivates when the bell is ringing).

Unconditioned response?

Appetitive Stimulus – A positive stimulus (food, shelter, mate).

Aversive Stimulus – Negative (poison, shock)

Second-order conditioning

_______________-Two stimuli learned together

- One is removed, reduced response.

- In this case, overshadowing of the blue stick by the red light has taken place in group 2.

______________One stimuli is learned (blue stick) and then later, another (red light)

When two stimuli are learned, the inability to pair just one of them to the stimuli.

1

2

3

-Edward Thorndike (Cats)

- B.F. Skinner (Rats)

- The animal learns that a particular action results in a outcome

- Operant Response (pushing the lever)

Video

Operant Conditioning vs. Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning – Learning by association

Operant Conditioning – Learning by consequences

In Classical, the animal learns to associate a behavior that it naturally does with some new stimulus

In Operant, an animal learns to do (or not do) a behavior because of the response (or consequence) it receives.

John Garcia’s RatsTaste Aversion

Experiments“Bright-Noisy Water”

vs. “Tasty Water”Rats learned to avoid

“Tasty Water” (gustatory) when exposed to X-Ray or toxin

DID NOT learn to avoid Bright-Noisy Water when exposed to X-Ray or toxin

What Animals can learn?...

John Garcia’s RatsOpposite true with

shock treatmentLearned avoidance with

“Bright-Noisy Water” but not “Tasty Water”

Concluded that Natural Selection would favor Gustatory Cues with internal discomfort and peripheral pain with Auditory Cues.

What Animals Learn?

But not this way!

Vampire Bats vs. Insectivorous Bats

Factors Affecting Learning – Group vs. Territorial Living

Zenaida Doves learn faster when they live in groups.

Factors Affecting Learning – High Anxiety and Low Anxiety

Low anxiety rats learned to escape water maze faster.

LA Rats had lower corticosterone and higher mineralcorticoid receptors in their hypothalamus

The transfer of information from one individual to another individual

What is Cultural Transmission?

Japanese Macaque -Imo, Koshima Islet, Japan

-Given Sweet Potatoes on Sandy Beach

-Imo learned to wash them.

-Most infant Macaques had learned this behavior over the years.

Stone Play• Started with Three year old female Japanese Macaque, Glance-6476

• Brought stones from forest stacked them up and knock them down.

• Territorial of her stones. Picked them up when others approached.

• Four years later, had become a daily occurrence

• Usually passed down to younger generations, but not up.

• Not documented in wild, non-provisioned groups. Only those with “Leisure Time”.

Why is cultural transmission so important?

• Natural Selection generally takes a long time to bring about change.

•Cultural Transmission can allow complex behaviors to be spread very quickly through a population.

Social Facilitation• A lone Starling is attracted to a group (The group is not necessarily doing an action)

•Safety in numbers

Local Enhancement• Fish 1 is drawn to where Fish 2 is foraging for food (doing an action).

• Once there, Fish 2 learns nothing else from Fish 1.

Testing Local Enhancement & Social Facilitation

• Capuchin Monkeys – Tested probability of eating a new (Novel) kind of food.

• Alone, would not eat much

• Alone but could see a group, would not eat (no social facilitation)

• Alone, but could see a group eating (Local Enhancement)

Social Learning – Observers learn specific behaviors or responses from others (models)

• Lots of examples involving humans and other animals.

• Chimps learn how to “fish” for termites by watching other chimps.

Social Learning in Humans - Albert Bandura and the "______" doll experiment.

Children working art project get one of two treatments:

1) Adult in room yelling and beating up “Bobo” doll.

2) Adult room is calm (“Bobo” doll still in room).

Children then given choice of toys to play with (aggressive vs. nonaggressive).

Angry adult - children played with aggressive toys & beat up “Bobo” and yelled same things.

Video

Social Learning - Imitation

• When a new behavior is learned from others and the behavior involves some sort of new spatial (topographical) manipulation as well as lead to the achievement of some goal.

Imitation

• Britian in 1940’s

• One bird probably accidentally opened the foil cap.

• Others learned by watching.

Social Learning - CopyingAn observer repeats what a model has done.Differs from imitation in that it does not have to

be new (novel) and does not have to involve some new topographical action.

Good example, mate-choice copying. Animal already knows how to choose a mate, but it might copy what another does.

Mate-Choice Copying in GuppiesPut in for 10 minutes, then released. Female usually choose Male other female choose.

Copying a defense responseMouse bitten by Stable fly – buries itself.

Observer later buries itself when it sees stable fly.

Social Learning - TeachingMom Cheetah’s:

1)Pursue and knock down prey, allow it to stand and run off so cubs could finish it off.

2) Carried back live animals to cubs before releasing them.

3) Would run slowly and let cubs take down prey (less common)

Social Learning - Teaching in Meerkats

• Eat many things including scorpions.

• Helpers would bring young pups dead or incapacitated scorpions. Older pups got live scorpions

• By playing experimental calls, researchers had helpers bringing different things.

Levels of Cultural Transmission

• Vertical – Across generations from parents to offspring.

• Horizontal – From peer to peer (such as your friends). Think Horizon….

• Oblique – Across generations, but not via parent/offspring interactions.

Vertical Transmission – Bottlenose Dolphins

• “Beaching” – Will chase a fish out of water and well go up on land to catch it.

• “Sponging” – Will get a sponge and feel around for fish on bottom

•Primarily seen in Females and their calves.

• Genetic Analysis suggest it is NOT genetic but learned.

Oblique Transmission – Rhesus Monkeys

• Wild-raised more fearful of snakes than lab-raised

• Lab raised that saw an adult (related or not) show fear of snakes learned to the fear (oblique transmission)

• Fear of flowers?, no fear developed

Which is smarter?

Activities:Learning (Letters, Names, Organization)