PSYC 304 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Fixed Action Pattern, Ethology, Midshipman Fish
Document Summary
Ethology: the study of both proximate and ultimate causes of animal behavior. Instinct: studied instincts in many species performed, a behavior pattern that appears in fully functional form the first time it is, previous experience is not required. In the area that the initial studies were done, there are many geese and the young turkeys had learned to ignore the goose silhouette. In experiments where young turkeys were not exposed to either flying geese or flying hawks, they ran for cover regardless of the direction in which the silhouette was pulled. Innate releasing mechanism: the neural network responsible for detecting the sign stimulus and triggering the. Fap: code breaking, one species exploits the fap of another species. Collected at dendrites and cell body: from other neurons or sensory systems. If the input causes enough excitement, chemical changes occur: all-or-none. The excitation has to reach a certain threshold to trigger the chemical changes: chemical changes lead to an action potential.
