Ms. TRS
Innate vs. Learned Behavior
Innate:
•Inherited from parents
Learned:
•Not inherited from parents,
dependent on the
environmental context
•Not controlled by genes
•Controlled by genes
•Develops by response to an
•Developed by natural
environmental stimulus
selection
•Increases chance of survival •May or may not increase
chance of survival and
and reproduction
reproduction
•Examples:
Migration of Black cap birds •Examples:
Learning to drive a car
Hunting instinct in some
Learning a language
dogs
A spider spinning web
Innate behaviour in invertebrates
• Taxis and kinesis are two terms used to
describe innate motor behaviors in
invertebrate species.
Taxis: A taxis is a directed response
to a stimulus. There are positive and
negative taxes.
e.g. chemotaxis, phototaxis,
gravitaxis, rheotaxis,
thigmotaxis, thermotaxis
Kinesis:A movement in response to a
non-directional stimulus, like
humidity.
The rate of movement depends on
the intensity of the stimulus rather
than its direction.
Some Examples of Types of Learning
• Imprinting :Young ones become attached to their mother. Helps in
survival because the young ones staying close to their mother get
protection and food.
Example: duckings following their mother
• Imitation
Development of “templates” for behavior*
– Inherited or innate skill sets that are developed with exposure to
target response
• e.g. birdsong
• Conditioned responses
– Classical Conditioning*
– Operant Conditioning
Classical Conditioning
• IB Objective: Outline Pavlov’s experiments
into conditioning of dogs. (E.3.5)
Classical Conditioning:
Definitions
Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): a stimulus that has the ability to produce a
specified response before conditioning begins.
(FOOD)
Unconditioned Response (UCR): response produced by the UCS.
(SALIVATION PRODUCED BY FOOD)
Conditioned Stimulus (CS): an initially neutral stimulus that comes to
produce a new response because it is associated with the UCS.
(BELL)
Conditioned Response (CR): the response produced by the CS.
(SALIVATION IN RESPONSE TO BELL)
Classical Conditioning
Ivan
Pavlov
Conditioning Trial:
Salivation
Test Trial:
Salivation
Other types of learning…
• IB Objective: Outline the role of inheritance
and learning in the development of birdsong
in young birds. (E.3.6)
Birdsong
• Birds have species-specific sounds
that are inherited. However, there
is also a component of learning to
the song that a bird will produce
as an adult.
– If a male bird is kept in isolation in a
laboratory, he will produce a very
crude (but species-specific) song,
according to an inherited template.
– Furthermore, if deafened, the song
will be even more crude.
Practice Questions
• Distinguish between learned and innate
behaviours.
• Describe the design of an experiment which
measures either taxis or kinesis of an
invertebrate animal.