ethology: biological aspects of learning

BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF LEARNING

Prof. S D RathodB N Bandodkar College of Science

Thane, Maharashtra, India

Autoshaping various events are learned by

animals in the nature by experience called as autoshaping.

The dangerous cues are avoided while the friendly cues are accepted.

Learning to avoid enemies

The goose shadow is accepted while the hawk shadow is avoided

Warning signals (innate avoidance behavior)

Freezing posture (Motionless)

E.g. opossum

White tailed deer fawn

Camouflage

Protean display (sudden change in posture to frighten enemy)

MimicryMullerian mimicry Warning coloration of one noxious

species to another

Batesian Mimicry

Mimic resembles a model that is noxious

Batesian Mimicry

Automimicry

Edible monarch butterfly mimic poisonous monarch and hence are not eaten by birds

Mertensian mimicry Similar to Batesian mimicry but it does not

involve bad taste or permit trial and error learning e.g. beefly, grass snake.

Learning to avoid sickness Animals learn to eat food which are

healthy or full of all minerals e.g. sodium deficient rats can learn which food contains salt and select the food which contains more amount of sodium.

A/c to Rozin (1976) Animals classify food into novel, familiar-safe, familiar-dangerous and familiar beneficial food.

Cognitive aspects of learning Are animals conciously aware of

themselves??? Do animals have sense of sorrow and

feel pleasure??? There are several aspects of learning

that cannot be clearly explained by conditioning.

Hidden aspects of conditioning From cognitive point of view during

shaping or conditioning animals might not work mechanically. It is of concern whether animals use their emotions along with their experience to learn the things

In classical conditioning the animal might be pairing the UCS with CS thoughtfully to give CR.

Insight Learning

Animal uses its experience to respond to something new problems. They suddenly resolve the problems and give appropriate response to the situations. The response thus exhibited might be the result of the calculation done before acting on it.

Chimpanzee solving problems

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