Biology Ch. 51
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36 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 behavior | what an animal does and how it does it |
| ethology | study of animal behavior in natural conditions |
| fixed action pattern | a sequence of behavioral acts that is essentially unchangeable and usually carried to completion once initiated |
| sign stimulus | external sensory stimulus triggering FAP |
| optimal foraging theory | foraging behavior as a compromise between fedding costs and feeding benefits |
| learning | modification of behavior resulting from specific experiences |
| habituation | a very simple type of learning that involves a lot of responsiveness to stimuli that convey little or no information |
| imprinting | learning that is limited to a specific time period in an animal's life and that is generally irreversible |
| associative learning | the ability of many animals to learn to associate one stimulus with another |
| classical conditioning | learning to associate an arbitrary stimulus with a reward or punishment |
| operant conditioning | trial-and-error learning |
| cognition | ability of an animal's nervous system to perceive, store, process, and use info gathered by sensory receptors |
| kinesis | simple change in activity or turniong rate in response to a stimulus |
| taxis | more or less automatic, oriented movement toward or away from some stimulus |
| cognitive map | internal represetnation, or code of the spatial relationships among objects in an animal's surroundings |
| migration | regular movement over relatively long distances |
| sociobiology | study and interpretation of social behavior |
| agnostic behavior | contest involving both threatening and submissive behavior determines which competitor gains access to some resource, such as food or a mate |
| promiscuous | no strong pair bonds or lasting relationships |
| monogamous | one male mating with one female |
| polygamous | individual of one sex mating with several of the other |
| polyandry | single female mates with several males |
| signal | a behavior that causes a change in behavior in another animal |
| communcation | transmission of, reception of, and response to signals |
| altruism | animals behave in ways that reduce their individual fitness and increase the fitness of the recipient of the behavior |
| inclusive fitness | the total effect an individual has on proliferating its genes by producing its own offspring and providing aid |
| kin selection | natural selection that favors rB>C by enhancing reproductive success of relatives |
| reciprocal altruism | current altruistic individual benefits in the future when the current beneficiary reciprocates |
| culture | the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization |
| proximate causation | The mechanistic explanation of "how" a behavior (or other aspect of an organism's biology) occurs or is modified; that is, how a stimulus elicits a behavior, what physiological mechanisms mediate the response, and how experience influences the response. |
| innate behavior | behavior that an organism is born with and does not have to be learned, such as a reflex or instinct |
| polygyny | having more than one wife at a time |
| ultimate causation | the evolutionary explanation of "why" a behavior (or other aspect of an organism's biology) occurs, that is, the benefit to survival and reproduction or the evolutionary significance of the behavioral act. |
| spatial learning | Modification of behavior based on expeience of the spatial structure of the environment |
| problem solving | process of cognition that occurs when a goal must be reached by thinking and behaving in certain ways |
| social learning | form of learning in which the organism observes and imitates the behavior of others |
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