34-1 Elements of
Behavior
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Stimulus and Response
Stimulus and Response
Biologists define behavior as the way an organism
reacts to changes in its internal condition or external
environment.
A behavior can be simple or complex.
Behaviors are performed when an animal reacts to a
stimulus.
A stimulus is any kind of signal that carries
information and can be detected.
For example, hunger is an internal stimulus that may
prompt you to eat.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Stimulus and Response
A single, specific reaction to a stimulus is called a
response.
A behavior may consist of more than one response.
For example, a shark may respond to the movement
of prey by swimming toward the prey and attacking it.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Stimulus and Response
Types of Stimuli
Animals respond to many types of stimuli, such as
light, sound, odors, and heat.
Not every animal can detect all of these stimuli.
The Mexican bulldog bat uses high-pitched sounds
to detect ripples made by a fish breaking the
surface of a lake.
Some birds detect the Earth’s magnetic field for
migration.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Stimulus and Response
How Animals Respond
Because of the differences in animals’ sensory
abilities, responses vary greatly.
When an animal responds to a stimulus, its body
systems, including the sense organs, nervous system,
and muscles, interact to produce the resultant
behavior.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Stimulus and Response
Once the senses detect an external stimulus,
information is passed along nerve cells to the brain.
The brain and nervous system process the
information, and direct the response.
Animals with simple nervous systems have simple
behaviors, such as moving toward or away from a
stimulus.
Animals with complex nervous systems have more
complicated and precise behaviors.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Behavior and Evolution
Behavior and Evolution
Animal behavior is important to survival & reproduction.
Many behaviors are influenced by genes and can be
inherited.
Behaviors may evolve under the influence of natural
selection.
Organisms with an adaptive behavior will survive and
reproduce better than organisms that lack the behavior.
After natural selection has operated for many
generations, most individuals will exhibit the adaptive
behavior.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Innate Behavior
Innate Behavior
An innate behavior is an instinct, or inborn behavior.
Innate behaviors appear in fully functional form the
first time they are performed, even though the animal
may have had no previous experience with the stimuli
to which it responds.
Innate behaviors depend on internal mechanisms that
develop from complex interactions between an
animal's genes and its environment.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Innate Behavior
Examples of innate behavior:
• the suckling of a newborn mammal
• the weaving of a spider web
• the building of hanging nests by weaver birds
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Learned Behavior
Learned Behavior
Animals often live in unpredictable environments, so
their behavior must be flexible enough to deal with
uncertainty and change.
Many animals can alter their behavior based on
experience. A change in behavior that results from
experience is called learning.
Learning is also called acquired behavior.
The four major types of learning are: habituation,
classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and
insight learning.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Learned Behavior
Habituation - the simplest type of learning
Habituation is a process by which an animal
decreases or stops its response to a repetitive
stimulus that neither rewards nor harms it.
For example, a worm may stop responding to the
shadow of something that neither provides the worm
with food nor threatens it.
By ignoring a nonthreatening or unrewarding
stimulus, animals can spend their time and energy
more efficiently.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Learned Behavior
Classical Conditioning
Any time an animal makes a mental connection
between a stimulus and some kind of reward or
punishment, it has learned by classical conditioning.
An example of classical conditioning is the work of
Pavlov and his dog. (Pavlov's experiment is shown on
the next few slides.)
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Learned Behavior
1. Before Conditioning
When a dog sees or
smells food, it produces
saliva.
Food is the stimulus and
the dog’s response is
salivation.
Dogs do not usually
salivate in response to
nonfood stimuli.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Learned Behavior
2. During Conditioning
By ringing a bell every
time he fed the dog,
Pavlov trained the dog
to associate the sight
and smell of food with
the ringing bell.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Learned Behavior
3. After Conditioning
When Pavlov rang a bell
in the absence of food,
the dog still salivated.
The dog was conditioned
to salivate in response to
a stimulus that it did not
normally associate with
food.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Learned Behavior
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning occurs when an animal learns
to behave in a certain way through repeated practice,
in order to receive a reward or avoid punishment.
Operant conditioning is also called trial-and-error
learning.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Learned Behavior
Operant conditioning was first described by B. F.
Skinner in the 1940s.
Skinner invented a testing procedure using a “Skinner
box.”
A Skinner box has a colored button that, when
pressed, delivers a food reward.
After an animal is rewarded several times, it learns
that it gets food whenever it presses the button.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Learned Behavior
Insight Learning - the most complex form of learning
Insight learning, or reasoning, occurs when an
animal applies something it has already learned to a
new situation, without a period of trial and error.
Insight learning is common among humans and
primates.
If you are given a math problem on an exam, you use
insight learning in order to solve it.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Instinct and Learning Combined
Instinct and Learning Combined
Most behaviors are a combination of instinct and
learning.
Young white-crowned sparrows have an innate ability
to recognize their own species’ song. To sing the
complete version, however, the young birds must first
hear it sung by adults.
Some young animals learn to recognize and follow the
first moving object they see during an early time in
their lives; usually this is their mother or father. This
process is called imprinting.
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34-1 Elements of Behavior
Instinct and Learning Combined
Imprinting keeps young animals close to their mother,
who protects them and leads them to food.
Once imprinting occurs, the behavior cannot be
changed.
Imprinting involves both innate and learned behaviors
and can occur through scent as well as sight.
Salmon imprint on the odor of the stream in which
they hatch. When they are mature, salmon remember
the odor of the stream and return there to spawn.
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34-1
Change in an animal's behavior as a result of
experience is called
a. stimulus.
b. learning.
c. response.
d. reflex.
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34-1
When a spider builds a web, it displays
a. learned behavior.
b. innate behavior.
c. habituation.
d. insight learning.
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34-1
Ivan Pavlov's training of a dog to salivate in
response to a ringing bell is known as
a. habituation.
b. imprinting.
c. classical conditioning.
d. stimulus.
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34-1
The process in which young animals learn to
recognize and follow the first moving object they
see is called
a. insight learning.
b. habituation.
c. imprinting.
d. classical conditioning.
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34-1
Habituation helps animals survive because it
a. helps animals find food.
b. enables animals to escape predators.
c. enables animals to recognize members of
their own species.
d. helps animals avoid wasting time and energy.
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