PSYO 2160 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Fixed Action Pattern, Behavioral Ecology, Ethology
Document Summary
Ethology: tactics (means to strategies) and behaviours (actions) Example: wolf ethologists does not equal wolf behavioural ecologists. Ethology: forms (ethogram), mechanisms and origins of. Ethologists study wolves and their behaviours up front. Whereas the ecologists just do tracking and environmental analyses. Fixed action pattern: doing something that is fixed. Ballistic behaviour: preprogrammed genetically to do something, you can"t stop them. Such as the goose rolling the egg (the stimulus) underneath it. Early synonyms: instinctive movements, inherited coordination, inborn skills. There are things you can do as long as your neurosystem got to a certain point. Dogs lick our mouths (fixed action pattern) because wolves throw up food for their young (innate releasing mechanism). Predictability of the action, movements are predictable and repetitive. Behaviour changes, some are very fixed (fap) and some others are not so fixed. Map motor action patterns sometimes fixed action patterns are not that fixed. No effect of sensory feedback, independent of afferent blahblahblah.