1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:01,800 The following content is provided 2 00:00:01,800 --> 00:00:04,030 under a Creative Commons license. 3 00:00:04,030 --> 00:00:06,880 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare continue 4 00:00:06,880 --> 00:00:10,740 to offer high-quality educational resources for free. 5 00:00:10,740 --> 00:00:13,350 To make a donation or view additional materials 6 00:00:13,350 --> 00:00:17,258 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 7 00:00:17,258 --> 00:00:17,883 at ocw.mit.edu. 8 00:00:22,060 --> 00:00:26,350 PROFESSOR: So we're at the end of the Alcock book now. 9 00:00:26,350 --> 00:00:33,300 And I just want to go briefly through that chapter. 10 00:00:33,300 --> 00:00:37,730 And then we will start talking about Lorenz 11 00:00:37,730 --> 00:00:44,195 and his review of learning, which we didn't do much of when 12 00:00:44,195 --> 00:00:48,070 we talked about Konrad Lorenz and his treatment, 13 00:00:48,070 --> 00:00:51,740 his review of ecology earlier in the class. 14 00:00:51,740 --> 00:00:56,860 So I think the first paragraphs of the book 15 00:00:56,860 --> 00:01:00,910 are a very nice summary of a major argument of the book. 16 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:09,850 Why would he call it the triumph of sociobiology? 17 00:01:12,830 --> 00:01:16,350 What's the basic idea here? 18 00:01:16,350 --> 00:01:20,580 It's been so heavily criticized, but it's basically-- 19 00:01:20,580 --> 00:01:22,430 it's withstood the criticisms. 20 00:01:22,430 --> 00:01:25,630 It's argued for this type of study. 21 00:01:25,630 --> 00:01:28,820 And if you look at actual publications, 22 00:01:28,820 --> 00:01:35,320 you can see there's been a big shift towards adapted reasons 23 00:01:35,320 --> 00:01:40,320 for behavior, basically tests of sociobiological theory, 24 00:01:40,320 --> 00:01:42,300 tests of Darwinian theory applied 25 00:01:42,300 --> 00:01:46,150 to social behavior of various sorts. 26 00:01:46,150 --> 00:01:51,440 But I want you to think about this sentence in that summary. 27 00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:56,410 He was talking about there are arguments about genetically 28 00:01:56,410 --> 00:01:59,500 determined behavior, accusing sociobiologists 29 00:01:59,500 --> 00:02:02,490 all the time of being genetic determinists. 30 00:02:02,490 --> 00:02:04,330 So then Alcock says, in fact, they 31 00:02:04,330 --> 00:02:07,205 could not study genetically determined behavior-- 32 00:02:07,205 --> 00:02:09,280 he means the sociobiologists. 33 00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:12,010 They couldn't study genetically determined behavior 34 00:02:12,010 --> 00:02:16,100 even if they wanted to, because it does not exist. 35 00:02:16,100 --> 00:02:17,830 And I want you to think about that. 36 00:02:17,830 --> 00:02:21,270 Is that a little extreme? 37 00:02:21,270 --> 00:02:22,200 I think it is. 38 00:02:27,580 --> 00:02:31,690 First of all, behavior is only indirectly influenced by genes. 39 00:02:31,690 --> 00:02:35,630 We know that it's determined by activity of the nervous system. 40 00:02:35,630 --> 00:02:37,840 And that nervous system developed according 41 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:42,480 to genetic information, but with a lot of influences 42 00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:44,625 from the tissue and external environments. 43 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:51,420 But I think the statement is still too extreme, 44 00:02:51,420 --> 00:02:54,706 because some behaviors have very little variation 45 00:02:54,706 --> 00:02:57,800 that you can attribute to learning 46 00:02:57,800 --> 00:03:00,270 or other influences of the external environment. 47 00:03:00,270 --> 00:03:03,750 For example, look at things like sneezing and yawning 48 00:03:03,750 --> 00:03:07,450 and withdrawal reflexes, grooming patterns in mice. 49 00:03:07,450 --> 00:03:10,720 They're not reflexes, they're fixed-action patterns. 50 00:03:10,720 --> 00:03:14,930 What we're seeing is the fixed motor pattern 51 00:03:14,930 --> 00:03:19,550 that's a major-- the final piece of a fixed-action pattern. 52 00:03:22,710 --> 00:03:25,770 The social signals in geese, various insect behaviors. 53 00:03:25,770 --> 00:03:30,260 There's a lot of things like that studied by ecologists. 54 00:03:30,260 --> 00:03:32,620 They're either reflexes or, on the output side, 55 00:03:32,620 --> 00:03:36,580 they're fixed motor patterns, which 56 00:03:36,580 --> 00:03:41,710 are basically genetically determined behavior patterns. 57 00:03:41,710 --> 00:03:44,900 So I think we can say that some behaviors are largely 58 00:03:44,900 --> 00:03:46,599 genetically determined. 59 00:03:46,599 --> 00:03:48,140 That's where I think Alcock is wrong. 60 00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:52,550 And he's an animal behaviorist. 61 00:03:52,550 --> 00:03:56,600 And he was an animal behaviorist before he 62 00:03:56,600 --> 00:04:00,930 started doing-- his research, like that of many animal 63 00:04:00,930 --> 00:04:05,910 behaviorist, shifted toward sociobiological questions 64 00:04:05,910 --> 00:04:07,090 in more recent years. 65 00:04:10,010 --> 00:04:13,000 Let's just remind ourselves the explanations 66 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:15,950 for fitness-reducing behaviors that 67 00:04:15,950 --> 00:04:19,740 have been offered by a sociobiologist. 68 00:04:19,740 --> 00:04:22,370 Many of them are altruistic. 69 00:04:22,370 --> 00:04:24,850 Most altruism has been shown to be adaptive, 70 00:04:24,850 --> 00:04:30,220 either directly because it involves genetic relatives, 71 00:04:30,220 --> 00:04:33,485 or indirectly with unrelated people. 72 00:04:36,810 --> 00:04:41,190 We call that-- because of reciprocal altruism because 73 00:04:41,190 --> 00:04:44,150 of the likelihood that if you're nice to somebody, 74 00:04:44,150 --> 00:04:46,520 they're more likely to be nice to you. 75 00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:50,840 And that's what reciprocal altruism is. 76 00:04:50,840 --> 00:04:55,240 But there's also maladaptive altruism without doubt. 77 00:04:55,240 --> 00:04:58,870 And there, they have two basic kinds of hypotheses. 78 00:04:58,870 --> 00:05:02,400 One's called the byproduct hypotheses, 79 00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:05,490 behavioral byproducts, approximate mechanisms 80 00:05:05,490 --> 00:05:07,105 that evolve for adaptive reasons. 81 00:05:07,105 --> 00:05:13,740 So that's often been applied to pet love and love for dogs, 82 00:05:13,740 --> 00:05:15,650 for example, in spite of all the problems 83 00:05:15,650 --> 00:05:18,330 that it has caused people. 84 00:05:18,330 --> 00:05:21,130 And also, we have the novel environment hypothesis, 85 00:05:21,130 --> 00:05:26,390 that they were adaptive and they evolved in the environment 86 00:05:26,390 --> 00:05:28,350 where they evolved, but the environment 87 00:05:28,350 --> 00:05:32,220 has changed and made them not so adaptive. 88 00:05:32,220 --> 00:05:36,800 And we've talked about a number of those things. 89 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:39,995 So why have many social scientists and people 90 00:05:39,995 --> 00:05:41,620 in the humanities ignored sociobiology? 91 00:05:44,750 --> 00:05:46,630 And this is from Alcock. 92 00:05:46,630 --> 00:05:51,030 He says evolutionary biology, not just sociobiology, 93 00:05:51,030 --> 00:05:53,480 but evolutionary biology in general 94 00:05:53,480 --> 00:05:57,870 is alien and disquieting to many social scientists, including 95 00:05:57,870 --> 00:06:00,990 some psychologists and cultural anthropologists, 96 00:06:00,990 --> 00:06:08,720 as well as many philosophers and academicians in humanities. 97 00:06:08,720 --> 00:06:11,140 The real cost of the continuing assaults 98 00:06:11,140 --> 00:06:13,420 is the resistance to incorporating 99 00:06:13,420 --> 00:06:16,230 evolutionary theory in other disciplines. 100 00:06:16,230 --> 00:06:19,130 People prefer to retain a worldview that's 101 00:06:19,130 --> 00:06:20,305 familiar and comfortable. 102 00:06:29,390 --> 00:06:33,360 Let me check page 221 and find that quote. 103 00:06:33,360 --> 00:06:36,370 It was a pretty interesting little episode there. 104 00:07:11,480 --> 00:07:15,343 Well, I said it was here, and I thought I had marked it. 105 00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:23,520 Oh, yeah. 106 00:07:29,470 --> 00:07:36,060 Sanford was the guy arguing sociobiological points 107 00:07:36,060 --> 00:07:36,710 at a meeting. 108 00:07:36,710 --> 00:07:39,920 And he was told, apes are mere animals. 109 00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:42,660 People alone possess culture. 110 00:07:42,660 --> 00:07:46,720 And only culture, not biology, not evolution 111 00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:47,990 can explain humanity. 112 00:07:51,360 --> 00:07:55,810 And that is still actually fairly common. 113 00:08:01,470 --> 00:08:05,240 So why is it so alien and disquieting? 114 00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:08,400 First of all, it's because of the perception 115 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:10,710 that it conflicts with ideologies, including 116 00:08:10,710 --> 00:08:14,810 religious doctrines, but other ideologies as well. 117 00:08:14,810 --> 00:08:17,660 Another among scientists is that they 118 00:08:17,660 --> 00:08:20,670 think sociobiologists are going to take over their field. 119 00:08:20,670 --> 00:08:24,400 You know, stay out of my field, this is my backyard. 120 00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:29,080 And also, in America especially, the extreme environmentalism, 121 00:08:29,080 --> 00:08:33,570 rejection of nature, with an exclusive emphasis on nurture. 122 00:08:33,570 --> 00:08:35,760 That is on learning. 123 00:08:35,760 --> 00:08:40,320 We've talked about that several times in the class. 124 00:08:40,320 --> 00:08:43,539 So what are the causes of extreme environmentalism 125 00:08:43,539 --> 00:08:45,030 in America? 126 00:08:45,030 --> 00:08:47,020 More extreme in America than Europe? 127 00:08:47,020 --> 00:08:50,169 This has come out several times near the beginning 128 00:08:50,169 --> 00:08:50,710 of the class. 129 00:08:55,140 --> 00:08:57,310 One was the opposition to attitudes 130 00:08:57,310 --> 00:09:02,970 in European aristocratic society because of the elitism based 131 00:09:02,970 --> 00:09:06,110 on inheritance, still common in European countries. 132 00:09:09,370 --> 00:09:14,170 In America, ideas of democracy included the belief 133 00:09:14,170 --> 00:09:16,870 that all are equal. 134 00:09:16,870 --> 00:09:19,220 And that should mean, of course, equal opportunity 135 00:09:19,220 --> 00:09:21,890 under the law, but it is often taken 136 00:09:21,890 --> 00:09:24,800 to mean we're equal at birth, with everything 137 00:09:24,800 --> 00:09:28,810 possible to anyone, to everyone who has the will 138 00:09:28,810 --> 00:09:31,570 and can find the opportunity. 139 00:09:31,570 --> 00:09:34,500 Many of us were brought up that way with, I hope, 140 00:09:34,500 --> 00:09:37,510 very good effects. 141 00:09:37,510 --> 00:09:40,230 And this was applied to the education system with, I think, 142 00:09:40,230 --> 00:09:42,875 good outcomes despite the inaccuracy of the beliefs. 143 00:09:46,580 --> 00:09:50,310 And then there's a very brief chapter 144 00:09:50,310 --> 00:09:53,406 that he has a very interesting appendix to. 145 00:09:53,406 --> 00:09:55,980 It won't take you very long to read the chapter. 146 00:09:55,980 --> 00:09:58,330 You should also look at these Appendix questions. 147 00:09:58,330 --> 00:10:03,210 I've picked this question, question three 148 00:10:03,210 --> 00:10:07,120 about the arguments of Ian Tattersall. 149 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:09,900 He's arguing against sociobiology. 150 00:10:09,900 --> 00:10:15,340 He describes how women in a surviving hunter-gatherer tribe 151 00:10:15,340 --> 00:10:19,490 breastfeed their infants for four or more years, 152 00:10:19,490 --> 00:10:22,590 a practice that blocks ovulation during this time 153 00:10:22,590 --> 00:10:25,260 and prevents them from becoming pregnant. 154 00:10:25,260 --> 00:10:27,250 He writes that their genes hardly 155 00:10:27,250 --> 00:10:30,530 seem to be screaming out for replication, 156 00:10:30,530 --> 00:10:35,216 and economic considerations is virtually always [INAUDIBLE]. 157 00:10:35,216 --> 00:10:37,180 For hunters and gatherers then, it's 158 00:10:37,180 --> 00:10:41,140 fertility not at slack that is the enemy. 159 00:10:41,140 --> 00:10:44,990 Individual San women show no sign, conscious or unconscious, 160 00:10:44,990 --> 00:10:49,720 of wishing to maximize their output of progeny. 161 00:10:49,720 --> 00:10:54,220 So he thinks he's identified a major weakness of sociobiology. 162 00:10:56,920 --> 00:11:00,380 So how do you deal with that? 163 00:11:00,380 --> 00:11:03,710 First of all, we know that individual awareness concerns 164 00:11:03,710 --> 00:11:08,330 proximate mechanisms, not evolved adaptations. 165 00:11:08,330 --> 00:11:11,100 And we've also-- I think I talked about this before. 166 00:11:11,100 --> 00:11:14,030 There are fitness-enhancing advantages 167 00:11:14,030 --> 00:11:17,080 of spacing of offspring. 168 00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:19,230 So he's certainly wrong about fertility 169 00:11:19,230 --> 00:11:22,600 itself being the enemy. 170 00:11:22,600 --> 00:11:25,550 There are other benefits of breastfeeding. 171 00:11:25,550 --> 00:11:28,440 Mother-child bonding, which promotes 172 00:11:28,440 --> 00:11:30,510 the welfare of the child, and thereby 173 00:11:30,510 --> 00:11:32,570 increasing his potential for reproduction. 174 00:11:35,110 --> 00:11:38,220 In fact, various problems occur in children 175 00:11:38,220 --> 00:11:42,310 that aren't able to bond with a parent, 176 00:11:42,310 --> 00:11:48,392 like children in homes where the caretaker is changing a lot, 177 00:11:48,392 --> 00:11:52,330 so they don't have a stable caretaker. 178 00:11:52,330 --> 00:11:54,630 Many of those people have great difficulties 179 00:11:54,630 --> 00:11:58,500 forming strong bonds later on in their lives. 180 00:12:01,100 --> 00:12:03,350 There's also a transfer of immunities 181 00:12:03,350 --> 00:12:06,090 when the infant's immune system is not yet mature. 182 00:12:06,090 --> 00:12:12,045 Very important for survival. 183 00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:20,150 This is actually for Chapter Nine, 184 00:12:20,150 --> 00:12:23,260 but I didn't deal with it then-- Defending Sociobiology 185 00:12:23,260 --> 00:12:25,750 Against the-- defended against the following charge. 186 00:12:25,750 --> 00:12:31,240 Sociobiology predicts that only immoral or amoral actions 187 00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:33,205 can evolve. 188 00:12:33,205 --> 00:12:35,530 And when sociologists are confronted 189 00:12:35,530 --> 00:12:38,420 with the existence of true altruism and moral behavior 190 00:12:38,420 --> 00:12:43,180 by true altruism-- he means not with genetic relatives-- 191 00:12:43,180 --> 00:12:45,495 and moral behavior, then they change their tune 192 00:12:45,495 --> 00:12:47,460 to say that these cases illustrate 193 00:12:47,460 --> 00:12:51,680 that human beings are able to resist evolved impulses. 194 00:12:51,680 --> 00:12:53,990 Why would we resist if our actions really 195 00:12:53,990 --> 00:12:56,940 have evolved by way of natural selection? 196 00:12:56,940 --> 00:13:00,820 Well, first of all, sociobiologists 197 00:13:00,820 --> 00:13:05,690 argue that morality itself has evolved with proximate causes. 198 00:13:05,690 --> 00:13:11,260 And sociobiologists have studied the adaptive values of altruism 199 00:13:11,260 --> 00:13:13,965 and moral behavior and may have found explanations. 200 00:13:17,030 --> 00:13:19,010 And finally, I would point out that we've 201 00:13:19,010 --> 00:13:22,160 evolved with multiple proximate systems 202 00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:25,900 in our central nervous systems, each for adaptive reasons, 203 00:13:25,900 --> 00:13:29,610 but these can conflict. 204 00:13:29,610 --> 00:13:32,370 In fact, conflict's common among these systems, 205 00:13:32,370 --> 00:13:34,260 because we didn't evolve to be happy, 206 00:13:34,260 --> 00:13:37,860 we evolved to pass on our genes. 207 00:13:37,860 --> 00:13:41,300 And so we have conflicting conflicts. 208 00:13:41,300 --> 00:13:44,390 And the mechanisms in the nervous system 209 00:13:44,390 --> 00:13:47,460 for handling those conflicts, interconnections 210 00:13:47,460 --> 00:13:50,015 are only partially successful at doing that. 211 00:13:54,530 --> 00:13:57,550 Now, Alcock, in this final chapter, 212 00:13:57,550 --> 00:14:02,890 brings up the area of evolutionary psychology. 213 00:14:02,890 --> 00:14:05,480 I will say a little bit about it after this slide. 214 00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:10,020 But I've also posted on Stellar an extra credit project. 215 00:14:10,020 --> 00:14:11,480 You don't have to do it. 216 00:14:11,480 --> 00:14:13,210 But some of you have talked to me. 217 00:14:13,210 --> 00:14:18,535 You're concerned about thinking your grade might be in between, 218 00:14:18,535 --> 00:14:20,820 you know, the high end of the B's and you 219 00:14:20,820 --> 00:14:28,170 want an A, or at the high end of C and you want a B. 220 00:14:28,170 --> 00:14:31,360 If you want to do the project, you 221 00:14:31,360 --> 00:14:33,080 would have to read at least two articles. 222 00:14:33,080 --> 00:14:37,110 And they can be online, but there's plenty 223 00:14:37,110 --> 00:14:38,100 that you can find. 224 00:14:38,100 --> 00:14:40,340 You can find the article I'm going 225 00:14:40,340 --> 00:14:42,060 to cite next, for example. 226 00:14:42,060 --> 00:14:47,780 A good article by David Buss on evolutionary psychology. 227 00:14:47,780 --> 00:14:50,430 And I want you to write a brief review, including 228 00:14:50,430 --> 00:14:54,160 the definition and origins of the term. 229 00:14:54,160 --> 00:14:57,490 I want you to distinguish between sociobiology and 230 00:14:57,490 --> 00:14:59,930 evolutionary psychology. 231 00:14:59,930 --> 00:15:03,060 And also, describe a couple of the controversies 232 00:15:03,060 --> 00:15:06,640 that this field has generated. 233 00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:09,250 I posted it. 234 00:15:09,250 --> 00:15:13,110 I had it listed as Posted a couple of days ago, 235 00:15:13,110 --> 00:15:14,230 but I guess I didn't. 236 00:15:14,230 --> 00:15:15,970 So I posted it this morning. 237 00:15:19,180 --> 00:15:21,935 But I want you to get your report ready first, 238 00:15:21,935 --> 00:15:24,670 so don't worry about this right now. 239 00:15:24,670 --> 00:15:30,870 Get that report done before you do this. 240 00:15:30,870 --> 00:15:33,490 And if you want to propose other extra credit based 241 00:15:33,490 --> 00:15:38,880 on, especially, these questions at the end of the Alcock book, 242 00:15:38,880 --> 00:15:39,640 you can do that. 243 00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:43,520 Just talk to me about it. 244 00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:45,500 Because if you decide to do it, then I 245 00:15:45,500 --> 00:15:50,490 would post that anybody else could do it also. 246 00:15:50,490 --> 00:15:53,460 This is the David Buss article. 247 00:15:53,460 --> 00:15:56,090 Listed at the top, he published it in '95 248 00:15:56,090 --> 00:15:58,010 on "Evolutionary Psychology-- A New 249 00:15:58,010 --> 00:16:01,820 Paradigm for Psychological Science." 250 00:16:01,820 --> 00:16:05,980 And in it, he includes a critique 251 00:16:05,980 --> 00:16:10,800 of one aspect he perceives in sociobiology. 252 00:16:10,800 --> 00:16:14,240 He says, "to quote one well-known sociobiologist, 253 00:16:14,240 --> 00:16:19,710 humans are inclusive fitness-maximizing blobs. 254 00:16:19,710 --> 00:16:23,530 I have labeled this view the sociobiological fallacy"-- 255 00:16:23,530 --> 00:16:27,550 he did that in 1991-- "because it conflates the theory 256 00:16:27,550 --> 00:16:31,540 of the origins of mechanisms"-- that is inclusive fitness 257 00:16:31,540 --> 00:16:35,010 theory-- "with a theory of the nature of those mechanisms. 258 00:16:35,010 --> 00:16:40,620 If men had, as a goal, the maximization of fitness, 259 00:16:40,620 --> 00:16:42,050 then why aren't they all lined up 260 00:16:42,050 --> 00:16:44,390 to give donations to sperm banks? 261 00:16:44,390 --> 00:16:48,050 Why do some individuals decide to forgo reproduction 262 00:16:48,050 --> 00:16:53,560 entirely?" 263 00:16:53,560 --> 00:16:58,550 It reminds me of the-- they were advertising a new movie 264 00:16:58,550 --> 00:17:01,520 that there's this guy that's found out 265 00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:04,369 he's the father of 250? 266 00:17:04,369 --> 00:17:05,250 Anyway. 267 00:17:05,250 --> 00:17:07,520 So some people do. 268 00:17:07,520 --> 00:17:15,300 So he continues and quotes two very well-known evolutionary 269 00:17:15,300 --> 00:17:17,300 psychologists. 270 00:17:17,300 --> 00:17:21,711 They were early into that area and helped get it going, 271 00:17:21,711 --> 00:17:22,210 really. 272 00:17:22,210 --> 00:17:23,400 Tooby and Cosmides. 273 00:17:27,849 --> 00:17:30,810 "The nature of mechanisms as end products 274 00:17:30,810 --> 00:17:34,540 should not be confused with the causal process that 275 00:17:34,540 --> 00:17:36,040 created them. 276 00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:40,260 The sociobiological fallacy has led to some dubious speculating 277 00:17:40,260 --> 00:17:43,530 about how, if one really looks closely enough, 278 00:17:43,530 --> 00:17:46,700 we will see that person x really is maximizing fitness 279 00:17:46,700 --> 00:17:49,560 even though the behavior seems anomalous with respect 280 00:17:49,560 --> 00:17:51,460 to the goal." 281 00:17:51,460 --> 00:17:54,680 That is, like, suicidal behaviors, 282 00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:57,330 schizophrenic behavior, dysfunctional behavior. 283 00:17:57,330 --> 00:18:00,500 "Evolutionary psychologists see humans 284 00:18:00,500 --> 00:18:05,670 as adaptive executors or mechanism-activators 285 00:18:05,670 --> 00:18:09,610 rather than as fitness strivers." 286 00:18:09,610 --> 00:18:11,930 But actually, that's pretty similar to what 287 00:18:11,930 --> 00:18:15,010 Alcock has been arguing in the book. 288 00:18:15,010 --> 00:18:18,340 He says pretty similar things, distinguishing 289 00:18:18,340 --> 00:18:22,970 between ultimate causes and proximate causes 290 00:18:22,970 --> 00:18:23,765 and mechanisms. 291 00:18:26,330 --> 00:18:30,085 This is a little more from that Buss paper. 292 00:18:32,635 --> 00:18:35,730 "Selection cannot produce mechanisms 293 00:18:35,730 --> 00:18:39,120 of the domain-general form of fitness maximizers 294 00:18:39,120 --> 00:18:41,840 for the simple reason there's never existed any 295 00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:44,420 domain-general way to maximize fitness. 296 00:18:44,420 --> 00:18:47,380 An implication of the sociobiological fallacy 297 00:18:47,380 --> 00:18:52,280 is that many sociobiologists have skipped or neglected 298 00:18:52,280 --> 00:18:54,040 the psychological level of analysis. 299 00:18:57,170 --> 00:19:00,070 Many go directly from principles of evolution 300 00:19:00,070 --> 00:19:02,050 to patterns of social organization, 301 00:19:02,050 --> 00:19:05,970 such as the nature of the mating system, polygyny 302 00:19:05,970 --> 00:19:10,450 versus monogamy, or the social system, like male dominance, 303 00:19:10,450 --> 00:19:12,920 or the legal system without a description or account 304 00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:16,250 of the psychological mechanisms on which these aggregate end 305 00:19:16,250 --> 00:19:18,470 products are presumably founded. 306 00:19:18,470 --> 00:19:21,070 In contrast, evolutionary psychologists 307 00:19:21,070 --> 00:19:25,130 see psychological mechanisms as central to the analysis, 308 00:19:25,130 --> 00:19:28,480 not something that can be skipped past over or omitted." 309 00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:31,250 And so some evolutionary psychologists 310 00:19:31,250 --> 00:19:36,040 that you see, they consider themselves psychologists, not 311 00:19:36,040 --> 00:19:39,330 sociobiologists, because they don't think you 312 00:19:39,330 --> 00:19:45,050 can really jump over the study of approximate mechanisms. 313 00:19:45,050 --> 00:19:47,420 But they're influenced in what things they choose 314 00:19:47,420 --> 00:19:52,810 to study by evolutionary adaptations. 315 00:19:52,810 --> 00:20:00,150 Anyway, this finishes our discussions about sociobiology. 316 00:20:00,150 --> 00:20:07,640 And what I want to do now is review the various types 317 00:20:07,640 --> 00:20:10,890 of learning, using Konrad Lorenz's book, 318 00:20:10,890 --> 00:20:12,280 Foundations of Ethology. 319 00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:14,520 It's his third part, is called "Adaptive 320 00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:19,050 Modifications of Behavior." 321 00:20:19,050 --> 00:20:22,080 And then on Friday and the following 322 00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:25,945 Monday, we'll see videos of field studies of great apes 323 00:20:25,945 --> 00:20:27,570 and talk about some of that. 324 00:20:27,570 --> 00:20:28,945 But mostly, we'll see the videos. 325 00:20:32,170 --> 00:20:38,270 And then I've canceled next Wednesday's, not this Wednesday 326 00:20:38,270 --> 00:20:41,490 but the following Wednesday, because many of you 327 00:20:41,490 --> 00:20:43,755 like to leave early for Thanksgiving. 328 00:20:49,700 --> 00:20:53,005 And some of you will still be struggling with your reports. 329 00:20:53,005 --> 00:20:58,430 So another good reason to cancel that class. 330 00:20:58,430 --> 00:21:02,110 So then the plan is, which I mentioned before, each of you 331 00:21:02,110 --> 00:21:04,160 will go to one of three classrooms-- I still 332 00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:07,170 have to get that arranged-- to hear reports. 333 00:21:07,170 --> 00:21:08,920 So you'll always be in the same classroom. 334 00:21:08,920 --> 00:21:11,910 Each of you will hear about a third of them that way. 335 00:21:11,910 --> 00:21:15,560 That's the only way we can do it with a class of this size, 336 00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:20,635 because we can't fit more than four into one session. 337 00:21:24,580 --> 00:21:26,660 A key point made in each student report 338 00:21:26,660 --> 00:21:29,570 should be learned, as I will ask you something. 339 00:21:29,570 --> 00:21:32,320 You will have some choice, but I still 340 00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:38,380 expect you to listen and learn a little bit from those reports. 341 00:21:45,866 --> 00:21:47,520 So we have a little time. 342 00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:48,940 Let's start going through. 343 00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:56,760 The view of learning by Konrad Lorenz, which is a broader 344 00:21:56,760 --> 00:22:02,180 view than you will find in most textbooks 345 00:22:02,180 --> 00:22:06,540 of learning, most general studies of learning. 346 00:22:06,540 --> 00:22:09,700 When I was a graduate student, I got a textbook on learning, 347 00:22:09,700 --> 00:22:13,380 and it was almost everything was on classical conditioning, 348 00:22:13,380 --> 00:22:17,750 and instrumental conditioning, and maybe a little bit 349 00:22:17,750 --> 00:22:23,082 about some observational learning, 350 00:22:23,082 --> 00:22:24,870 a little bit on mimicry. 351 00:22:24,870 --> 00:22:26,740 But some of them even admitted that they 352 00:22:26,740 --> 00:22:27,823 were very non-ethological. 353 00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:33,810 Lorenz felt the need-- he was aware of all that. 354 00:22:33,810 --> 00:22:41,810 And before he wrote this book in the late-1970s, published 355 00:22:41,810 --> 00:22:47,170 in 1981, he made sure he included 356 00:22:47,170 --> 00:22:49,160 an ethologist's view of learning. 357 00:22:52,360 --> 00:22:55,150 And rather than just put them online and go 358 00:22:55,150 --> 00:22:59,920 right to the videos, I want to go through them, 359 00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:02,675 so you have a chance to think about them 360 00:23:02,675 --> 00:23:05,640 and discuss them with me if you want to. 361 00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:10,565 He emphasizes the various, specific forms of learning 362 00:23:10,565 --> 00:23:14,070 have each evolved in order to produce what are normally 363 00:23:14,070 --> 00:23:17,470 adaptive responses. 364 00:23:17,470 --> 00:23:21,350 And he emphasizes especially that you cannot reduce all 365 00:23:21,350 --> 00:23:24,950 learning to one or two types. 366 00:23:24,950 --> 00:23:31,390 So here's the major types of learning as he classifies them. 367 00:23:31,390 --> 00:23:35,740 Learning without association, learning through association 368 00:23:35,740 --> 00:23:39,370 but without feedback, reporting success. 369 00:23:39,370 --> 00:23:42,660 That is without reward or punishment. 370 00:23:42,660 --> 00:23:46,090 Learning affected by the consequences of behavior. 371 00:23:46,090 --> 00:23:48,920 So there, you have rewards or punishment. 372 00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:51,060 Then motor learning. 373 00:23:51,060 --> 00:23:53,230 And finally, the kind of learning you 374 00:23:53,230 --> 00:23:58,000 get with exploratory behavior, learning 375 00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:00,600 motivated by curiosity. 376 00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:03,510 So he goes through each of these. 377 00:24:03,510 --> 00:24:08,750 Let's start with learning without association. 378 00:24:08,750 --> 00:24:11,266 There's two types of learning without association 379 00:24:11,266 --> 00:24:12,015 that he describes. 380 00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:20,690 Facilitation and sensitization he groups together. 381 00:24:20,690 --> 00:24:21,740 And habituation. 382 00:24:21,740 --> 00:24:26,890 So in one, a response is becoming enhanced, 383 00:24:26,890 --> 00:24:29,900 but not because of any associations. 384 00:24:29,900 --> 00:24:33,050 In another, there's habituation. 385 00:24:33,050 --> 00:24:34,915 With repeated presentation of the stimulus, 386 00:24:34,915 --> 00:24:38,100 the response decreases. 387 00:24:38,100 --> 00:24:40,820 And he treats habituation very broadly. 388 00:24:40,820 --> 00:24:44,060 He includes stimulus adaptation with it. 389 00:24:44,060 --> 00:24:47,070 So first of all, facilitation. 390 00:24:47,070 --> 00:24:52,800 We'll deal with facilitation and sensitization separately. 391 00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:55,130 So by facilitation, he means things 392 00:24:55,130 --> 00:24:59,700 like the prey-catching response of newly hatched squid. 393 00:24:59,700 --> 00:25:02,290 It's performed with flawless coordination 394 00:25:02,290 --> 00:25:06,150 when it's first released for the first time. 395 00:25:06,150 --> 00:25:10,030 It's preceded by intention movements for several seconds. 396 00:25:10,030 --> 00:25:14,460 All the characteristics of a fixed-action pattern. 397 00:25:14,460 --> 00:25:20,070 But the response is lower at first, and then it speeds up. 398 00:25:20,070 --> 00:25:24,150 It's facilitated just with repetition. 399 00:25:27,250 --> 00:25:29,000 And then with maturation, there's 400 00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:34,430 improvements in the way this functions. 401 00:25:34,430 --> 00:25:40,130 But it appears that it's due just to the maturation. 402 00:25:40,130 --> 00:25:42,900 And there's a number of things like that in behavior. 403 00:25:42,900 --> 00:25:44,556 They change with maturation. 404 00:25:44,556 --> 00:25:48,290 The nervous system takes time for all levels to mature, 405 00:25:48,290 --> 00:25:50,390 and the responses can change. 406 00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:58,410 Another example is the pecking by recently hatched chicks. 407 00:25:58,410 --> 00:26:02,140 There's been a few nice studies of this. 408 00:26:02,140 --> 00:26:08,130 In this, they peck at seeds, but their pecking is very scattered 409 00:26:08,130 --> 00:26:12,110 at first, and then it becomes more and more focused. 410 00:26:12,110 --> 00:26:15,850 And it doesn't matter whether they're being rewarded or not. 411 00:26:15,850 --> 00:26:19,400 You can put displacing prisms on them, 412 00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:25,530 so they're pecking at the wrong place than where 413 00:26:25,530 --> 00:26:27,509 the seeds actually are, because they see them 414 00:26:27,509 --> 00:26:28,300 in the wrong place. 415 00:26:28,300 --> 00:26:35,120 And yet, you still get this more and more focused pecking. 416 00:26:35,120 --> 00:26:37,447 So it doesn't depend on feedback, but only 417 00:26:37,447 --> 00:26:38,030 on repetition. 418 00:26:44,410 --> 00:26:49,170 So then we go on to sensitization. 419 00:26:49,170 --> 00:26:51,710 Take the escape response in the earthworm. 420 00:26:55,850 --> 00:26:59,520 If a blackbird has just pecked the worm, the response 421 00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:07,060 the next time he gets pecked at, he responds much more quickly. 422 00:27:07,060 --> 00:27:08,885 And it's triggered with a lower threshold. 423 00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:15,580 Again, it doesn't involve feedback. 424 00:27:20,050 --> 00:27:22,110 It changes with repetition. 425 00:27:22,110 --> 00:27:25,690 Again, becomes sensitized. 426 00:27:25,690 --> 00:27:28,580 There's this phenomenon called a feeding frenzy, 427 00:27:28,580 --> 00:27:34,530 especially in fish, that they feed 428 00:27:34,530 --> 00:27:39,680 on species that occur in swarms or schools. 429 00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:46,000 And you will see, when they encounter prey in such a group, 430 00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:47,960 they seem to go wild. 431 00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:53,120 And their responses-- they're sensitized 432 00:27:53,120 --> 00:27:55,180 to respond more and more strongly. 433 00:27:55,180 --> 00:27:58,150 In fact, they seem to be-- before very long, 434 00:27:58,150 --> 00:28:03,340 they're totally dominated by their feeding. 435 00:28:03,340 --> 00:28:06,430 You see it in sharks, you see it in tuna. 436 00:28:06,430 --> 00:28:10,330 And it's certainly a phenomenon exploited by fishermen, 437 00:28:10,330 --> 00:28:15,070 because it brings together a lot of these predatory fish, 438 00:28:15,070 --> 00:28:16,170 especially tuna. 439 00:28:16,170 --> 00:28:20,095 And there's a few other fish that are like fish like that 440 00:28:20,095 --> 00:28:21,260 also. 441 00:28:21,260 --> 00:28:24,840 The lower thresholds are probably also due 442 00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:28,730 to social facilitation and of course, 443 00:28:28,730 --> 00:28:32,110 specific key stimuli from the prey objects. 444 00:28:32,110 --> 00:28:34,970 But the point is there's a sensitization. 445 00:28:34,970 --> 00:28:37,040 It is a simple form of learning. 446 00:28:40,192 --> 00:28:41,775 If you don't like to call it learning, 447 00:28:41,775 --> 00:28:43,175 you can call it plasticity. 448 00:28:43,175 --> 00:28:47,240 But it's just as well to call it a simple form 449 00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:48,660 of learning without association. 450 00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:55,675 And then finally, the second major type, 451 00:28:55,675 --> 00:28:59,480 if we lump the first two together, habituation. 452 00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:02,076 And here, he includes stimulus adaptation. 453 00:29:02,076 --> 00:29:06,390 But the studies of it often separate these. 454 00:29:06,390 --> 00:29:08,150 And he gives us examples. 455 00:29:08,150 --> 00:29:12,250 He gives several examples in this slide and the next. 456 00:29:12,250 --> 00:29:16,580 First, reflex habituation in hydra. 457 00:29:16,580 --> 00:29:20,640 It responds to contacts by, say, water movement, touch, 458 00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,430 or any shaking of the substrate just 459 00:29:23,430 --> 00:29:27,079 by contracting its tentacles and body. 460 00:29:27,079 --> 00:29:28,370 You know what hydra looks like? 461 00:29:28,370 --> 00:29:31,740 It looks like a tiny, little octopus. 462 00:29:31,740 --> 00:29:35,680 It's got the tentacles it uses in its movement. 463 00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:41,670 A very tiny, little cnidarian. 464 00:29:41,670 --> 00:29:45,970 Well, if it lives in fairly turbulent brooks, 465 00:29:45,970 --> 00:29:47,250 it does habituate. 466 00:29:47,250 --> 00:29:51,100 It's not constantly responding to that moving water. 467 00:29:51,100 --> 00:29:53,730 Those responses decrease. 468 00:29:53,730 --> 00:29:55,520 So the stimuli of the flowing water 469 00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:59,295 lose their releasing properties, but the thresholds 470 00:29:59,295 --> 00:30:02,540 with all the other key stimuli, like being touched 471 00:30:02,540 --> 00:30:09,760 by another animal or something, they stay unchanged. 472 00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:12,430 Just that particular stimulus, the moving water, 473 00:30:12,430 --> 00:30:19,030 stops eliciting that reflex response. 474 00:30:19,030 --> 00:30:21,420 And then he has several properties 475 00:30:21,420 --> 00:30:26,530 of turkeys, their response to novel sounds. 476 00:30:26,530 --> 00:30:28,820 They start gobbling if they're exposed 477 00:30:28,820 --> 00:30:33,058 to any novel kind of sound. 478 00:30:33,058 --> 00:30:35,840 It habituates with repeated presentations. 479 00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:41,970 It's very specific to the sound frequency. 480 00:30:41,970 --> 00:30:44,990 So you can actually plot a generalization gradient. 481 00:30:44,990 --> 00:30:48,360 You'll see that if you move the frequency 482 00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:52,840 of the sound stimulus, the further you move it away 483 00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,810 from the original stimulus, the more strongly they 484 00:30:55,810 --> 00:30:56,490 will respond. 485 00:30:56,490 --> 00:30:58,840 So you can show that the habituation 486 00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:02,400 is very specific to a tone. 487 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:06,560 And then it loses its-- the habituation 488 00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:08,190 gets less and less when you get further 489 00:31:08,190 --> 00:31:09,540 and further from that frequency. 490 00:31:12,310 --> 00:31:18,990 So even if you suddenly reduce the amplitude of the sound, 491 00:31:18,990 --> 00:31:21,985 they will start gobbling. 492 00:31:21,985 --> 00:31:23,785 They just use that to demonstrate 493 00:31:23,785 --> 00:31:25,880 that the habituation isn't stimulus 494 00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,350 adaptation but a real habituation. 495 00:31:28,350 --> 00:31:30,760 They're responding to the novelty, 496 00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:35,770 and they are able to detect, in a fairly sophisticated way, 497 00:31:35,770 --> 00:31:39,840 the novelty of the sound, as do humans. 498 00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:44,880 And then he goes on and talks about the flight responses 499 00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:50,580 in turkeys, flight responses to aerial raptors, 500 00:31:50,580 --> 00:31:53,680 so birds of prey when they appear. 501 00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:59,760 Of course, they can be very dangerous to turkeys. 502 00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:02,590 And you remember, when we talked about this, 503 00:32:02,590 --> 00:32:04,800 talking about ecology, and people 504 00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,480 tried to show that they respond specifically 505 00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:08,665 to particular shapes. 506 00:32:11,390 --> 00:32:15,950 Like they don't respond to the goose- or duck-like shape, 507 00:32:15,950 --> 00:32:20,100 but they do respond to the hawk-like shape. 508 00:32:20,100 --> 00:32:23,850 But it's been shown that most of that, or perhaps all of it, 509 00:32:23,850 --> 00:32:25,935 is just explained by stimulus novelty. 510 00:32:28,550 --> 00:32:32,000 They habituate the frequently occurring stimuli. 511 00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,930 So they habituate to buzzards, because they see them 512 00:32:35,930 --> 00:32:36,640 all the time. 513 00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,272 They habituate to a fly on a white ceiling 514 00:32:39,272 --> 00:32:40,855 even though they respond to it like it 515 00:32:40,855 --> 00:32:43,242 were a predator at the beginning. 516 00:32:43,242 --> 00:32:46,540 They habituate to balloons in the sky, 517 00:32:46,540 --> 00:32:48,050 which, again, they respond to them 518 00:32:48,050 --> 00:32:49,466 initially like they're a predator. 519 00:32:52,420 --> 00:32:55,180 So the least frequently occurring stimulus 520 00:32:55,180 --> 00:32:58,200 from a raptor is probably that of a bald eagle. 521 00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:03,970 Now, he's talking about the turkeys in Seewiesen, Germany, 522 00:33:03,970 --> 00:33:10,780 where Konrad Lorenz, under the auspices of the Max Planck 523 00:33:10,780 --> 00:33:16,100 Institute, established a behavioral laboratory 524 00:33:16,100 --> 00:33:17,970 for field studies of various sorts 525 00:33:17,970 --> 00:33:22,760 and experimental ethological studies of animals. 526 00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:26,310 And he was joined there by a number of very good scientists. 527 00:33:26,310 --> 00:33:29,310 And the whole series of ethological studies 528 00:33:29,310 --> 00:33:34,640 have been reported that were done there at Seewiesen. 529 00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:37,090 I actually visited there a long time ago. 530 00:33:40,670 --> 00:33:42,780 Didn't meet Konrad Lorenz, but I did 531 00:33:42,780 --> 00:33:45,150 meet some of the people that worked with him. 532 00:33:50,660 --> 00:33:54,710 So the only stronger response than the response 533 00:33:54,710 --> 00:33:58,830 he got to a bald eagle was to something even 534 00:33:58,830 --> 00:34:02,410 more novel-- a dirigible. 535 00:34:02,410 --> 00:34:05,530 It flew over Seewiesen about twice per year. 536 00:34:05,530 --> 00:34:10,370 And that led to this vigorous flight reactions of the turkeys 537 00:34:10,370 --> 00:34:11,300 they kept there. 538 00:34:15,530 --> 00:34:18,470 The blimp, the most novel stimulus. 539 00:34:22,770 --> 00:34:26,550 So then he discusses learning through association 540 00:34:26,550 --> 00:34:30,489 without feedback-reporting reporting success. 541 00:34:30,489 --> 00:34:31,550 And these are the types. 542 00:34:34,060 --> 00:34:35,440 This is what he calls them. 543 00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:38,710 And this is where we will talk about the conditioned reflex. 544 00:34:38,710 --> 00:34:40,429 Simple learning through association 545 00:34:40,429 --> 00:34:43,570 without feedback reporting success. 546 00:34:43,570 --> 00:34:47,120 So it's not instrumental conditioning, 547 00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:48,905 it's not problem-solving. 548 00:34:48,905 --> 00:34:51,389 He includes imprinting there. 549 00:34:51,389 --> 00:34:54,449 Avoidance responses acquired through trauma. 550 00:34:54,449 --> 00:34:56,489 Condition inhibition. 551 00:34:56,489 --> 00:34:58,530 Let's deal with, first, habituation 552 00:34:58,530 --> 00:35:02,510 to associated stimuli where animals habituate 553 00:35:02,510 --> 00:35:06,560 to the background, to the environment. 554 00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:14,950 And so for example, when we tame a bird, for example, 555 00:35:14,950 --> 00:35:18,240 there's habituation to flight-eliciting stimuli that 556 00:35:18,240 --> 00:35:23,420 is normally associated with humans. 557 00:35:23,420 --> 00:35:26,080 The tameness can just suddenly disappear 558 00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:28,490 if you move the animal to a more novel 559 00:35:28,490 --> 00:35:30,725 environment or the environment suddenly changes. 560 00:35:34,330 --> 00:35:37,200 I've noticed this a number of times in hamsters. 561 00:35:40,390 --> 00:35:45,840 Even if the sound environment changes in the lab, 562 00:35:45,840 --> 00:35:49,280 there are strange sounds, strange people talking around, 563 00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:51,750 the animal, it's like he just gets nervous, 564 00:35:51,750 --> 00:35:53,800 and his whole behavior changes. 565 00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:58,350 His habituation to me, for example, the stimuli I 566 00:35:58,350 --> 00:36:02,475 provide changes, and he starts responding very differently. 567 00:36:05,700 --> 00:36:09,860 And this can be a real problem for your pet, for example. 568 00:36:09,860 --> 00:36:14,242 If you move them to a very novel environment, 569 00:36:14,242 --> 00:36:15,825 their behavior can change drastically. 570 00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:23,980 He talks about mobbing in wild geese. 571 00:36:23,980 --> 00:36:29,780 They do habituate to particular dogs. 572 00:36:29,780 --> 00:36:32,190 In the film, I think, we saw a dog 573 00:36:32,190 --> 00:36:33,740 and the way the geese responded. 574 00:36:33,740 --> 00:36:35,650 Well, that was clearly a novel dog, 575 00:36:35,650 --> 00:36:37,730 because they will get used to a dog like that 576 00:36:37,730 --> 00:36:39,480 and they'll stop mobbing. 577 00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:43,820 But the mobbing can reappear to the same dog 578 00:36:43,820 --> 00:36:45,850 if the environment changes. 579 00:36:45,850 --> 00:36:49,900 And that's the point here, that the environment, 580 00:36:49,900 --> 00:36:55,990 the associated stimuli, stimuli associated with the habituation 581 00:36:55,990 --> 00:36:59,270 do make a difference. 582 00:36:59,270 --> 00:37:01,130 And then he talks about a problem 583 00:37:01,130 --> 00:37:04,475 that some flight responses appear to habituate too much. 584 00:37:04,475 --> 00:37:07,280 It doesn't seem to be adaptive. 585 00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,520 But he concludes that this may be 586 00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:12,900 due to an unnatural constancy of the environment in this 587 00:37:12,900 --> 00:37:16,560 when we study animals. 588 00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,145 And he talks about the way all chaffinches respond 589 00:37:20,145 --> 00:37:22,600 to owls, something studied by Robert Hinde. 590 00:37:26,500 --> 00:37:39,470 Studies of gosling using the warning call of parents. 591 00:37:39,470 --> 00:37:41,000 And this was studied by Lorenz. 592 00:37:43,670 --> 00:37:45,730 I put it in brackets here, because this 593 00:37:45,730 --> 00:37:46,825 didn't come from Lorenz. 594 00:37:49,770 --> 00:37:57,530 With hamsters in the laboratory, again, they 595 00:37:57,530 --> 00:38:00,600 appear to habituate too much to the stimuli that 596 00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:02,970 can cause flight movements. 597 00:38:02,970 --> 00:38:06,160 And because of the importance of anti-predator behavior, 598 00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:08,390 it's a big puzzle. 599 00:38:08,390 --> 00:38:12,020 But I found that if you can set up 600 00:38:12,020 --> 00:38:21,280 a simulated natural environment-- so you eliminate 601 00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:24,170 their constant exposure to humans walking around 602 00:38:24,170 --> 00:38:31,400 in the laboratory-- then you can get very powerful responses 603 00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:33,730 to predator-like stimuli. 604 00:38:33,730 --> 00:38:38,470 But I found that's necessary in some form. 605 00:38:38,470 --> 00:38:42,496 You have to simulate aspects of a natural environment 606 00:38:42,496 --> 00:38:47,660 to get-- because they do habituate to the associated 607 00:38:47,660 --> 00:38:50,630 stimuli as well as the specific stimuli of the human. 608 00:38:56,850 --> 00:39:01,860 Another thing related to that is if you just 609 00:39:01,860 --> 00:39:05,240 move a hamster cage-- of course, in the laboratory, 610 00:39:05,240 --> 00:39:07,222 again, it's very artificial environments. 611 00:39:07,222 --> 00:39:08,680 We keep them in these little cages. 612 00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:11,320 And the cages are transparent. 613 00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:14,900 They can't get out of them, but they-- unless you give them 614 00:39:14,900 --> 00:39:17,420 a lot of time, in which case they 615 00:39:17,420 --> 00:39:21,080 were able to chew a hole right through the cage 616 00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:23,920 and eventually get out. 617 00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:27,560 But if you just move the cage across the room 618 00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:30,890 or you even just rotate it, you can totally 619 00:39:30,890 --> 00:39:34,530 change the behavior, because the novel positions 620 00:39:34,530 --> 00:39:38,680 of visual stimuli with respect to the gauge stimuli, 621 00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:42,710 it can cause the hamster to rearrange its cage just 622 00:39:42,710 --> 00:39:46,280 to regain the orientation of the nest and food horde 623 00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:48,590 with respect to visual landmarks. 624 00:39:48,590 --> 00:39:52,370 So they're very responsive to the entire environment, not 625 00:39:52,370 --> 00:39:58,010 just of the things that are immediately around them. 626 00:39:58,010 --> 00:40:01,310 And they can respond very differently to humans 627 00:40:01,310 --> 00:40:03,980 when you do that. 628 00:40:03,980 --> 00:40:05,430 You'll have a tame animal. 629 00:40:05,430 --> 00:40:09,810 You rotate the cage or move the cage across the room-- 630 00:40:09,810 --> 00:40:12,860 like animal caretakers will do this sometimes. 631 00:40:12,860 --> 00:40:14,410 Cleaning up, they'll move the racks. 632 00:40:14,410 --> 00:40:18,580 It changes the behavior of the animals. 633 00:40:18,580 --> 00:40:21,010 I just point out that this kind of habituation 634 00:40:21,010 --> 00:40:23,140 involves a kind of spatial learning. 635 00:40:23,140 --> 00:40:25,760 They use visual landmarks for knowledge 636 00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:29,730 of where they are in the local environment. 637 00:40:29,730 --> 00:40:31,640 An important kind of learning. 638 00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,900 And if we have time, I will go through some sort 639 00:40:34,900 --> 00:40:39,040 of a neuroscience-based view of the learning, 640 00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:42,660 because we've learned a lot about some 641 00:40:42,660 --> 00:40:45,380 of the brain mechanisms that involve this 642 00:40:45,380 --> 00:40:48,550 and other types of animal behavior. 643 00:40:51,470 --> 00:40:58,560 So then we have his category, adding stimuli to key stimuli. 644 00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:00,870 So now we're dealing with fixed-action patterns, 645 00:41:00,870 --> 00:41:03,250 key stimuli that elicit fixed-action patterns. 646 00:41:03,250 --> 00:41:08,880 But animals become accustomed to-- if certain other stimuli 647 00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,980 always occur when you're eliciting these action 648 00:41:11,980 --> 00:41:14,740 patterns. 649 00:41:14,740 --> 00:41:19,390 They don't become substitutes for the key stimuli, 650 00:41:19,390 --> 00:41:23,980 but they affect the way the response is being elicited. 651 00:41:23,980 --> 00:41:29,280 So you take, for example, the human smiling response 652 00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,400 and its role in social bonding. 653 00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:34,300 It was studied by Rene Spitz. 654 00:41:34,300 --> 00:41:36,510 It's mentioned in the book. 655 00:41:36,510 --> 00:41:39,690 And the response over time becomes 656 00:41:39,690 --> 00:41:42,530 more and more selective. 657 00:41:42,530 --> 00:41:46,170 When a baby is born in a very early period, 658 00:41:46,170 --> 00:41:51,130 it will smile in response to just a dummy stimulus. 659 00:41:51,130 --> 00:41:55,560 You just construct a little face with just eyes 660 00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:56,620 and a smile on it. 661 00:41:56,620 --> 00:41:58,460 That's all you need. 662 00:41:58,460 --> 00:42:00,010 And they will smile back. 663 00:42:03,500 --> 00:42:06,460 You thought he was smiling, because he 664 00:42:06,460 --> 00:42:08,510 thought you were funny or he liked. 665 00:42:08,510 --> 00:42:13,000 Sorry, it's a fixed-action pattern response 666 00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,870 to your smiling mouth and eyes. 667 00:42:18,490 --> 00:42:23,730 Then that changes over time. 668 00:42:23,730 --> 00:42:27,050 They will respond to live humans only. 669 00:42:27,050 --> 00:42:31,390 They will stop responding to your dummy stimulus. 670 00:42:31,390 --> 00:42:36,590 And later, they'll respond just to familiar humans. 671 00:42:36,590 --> 00:42:39,570 In fact, the response to strangers 672 00:42:39,570 --> 00:42:42,210 can become quite opposite. 673 00:42:42,210 --> 00:42:44,176 Rather than smiling, they will start crying. 674 00:42:49,630 --> 00:42:52,240 He points out that their emotional problems-- 675 00:42:52,240 --> 00:42:54,680 you see in children raised in hospitals. 676 00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:56,500 And I mentioned this before. 677 00:42:56,500 --> 00:43:00,447 Because of the caretaker changes, 678 00:43:00,447 --> 00:43:02,030 they interfere with the bonding, which 679 00:43:02,030 --> 00:43:04,701 is crucial for formation of later bonds of friendship 680 00:43:04,701 --> 00:43:05,200 and love. 681 00:43:08,050 --> 00:43:14,460 And in imprinting, there's always 682 00:43:14,460 --> 00:43:17,792 stimuli associated with the stimulus 683 00:43:17,792 --> 00:43:20,080 that the animal is imprinting. 684 00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:24,965 And this leads to individual recognition in geese 685 00:43:24,965 --> 00:43:26,966 and actually in humans as well. 686 00:43:31,370 --> 00:43:33,590 And I point out here that in studies, they 687 00:43:33,590 --> 00:43:36,460 show that the critical stimuli for human individual 688 00:43:36,460 --> 00:43:38,700 recognition are the eyes, eyebrows, 689 00:43:38,700 --> 00:43:43,560 and nose, the parts covered by a carnival mask. 690 00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:45,580 Very effective in concealing identity 691 00:43:45,580 --> 00:43:50,030 unless people have a very prominent mustache or beard 692 00:43:50,030 --> 00:43:51,790 or something that characterizes them. 693 00:43:51,790 --> 00:43:55,221 Then you might learn to recognize them that way. 694 00:43:55,221 --> 00:43:59,740 Because it's mainly eyes, eyebrows, and nose. 695 00:43:59,740 --> 00:44:01,492 I've never been totally convinced of that, 696 00:44:01,492 --> 00:44:03,450 but I guess that's what the studies have shown. 697 00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:11,570 And then finally, conditioned reflexes. 698 00:44:11,570 --> 00:44:15,900 He calls this conditioning with stimulus selection. 699 00:44:15,900 --> 00:44:18,670 Pavlovian conditioning. 700 00:44:18,670 --> 00:44:21,979 It's also called type S conditioning, stimulus 701 00:44:21,979 --> 00:44:22,520 conditioning. 702 00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:29,955 And he talks about Pavlov's bell, 703 00:44:29,955 --> 00:44:32,680 the use of the bell as a conditional stimulus. 704 00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:35,700 Such regular sequences normally occur only 705 00:44:35,700 --> 00:44:38,100 when there's a causal connection. 706 00:44:38,100 --> 00:44:42,700 And here, you're exposing him to a very abnormal connection, 707 00:44:42,700 --> 00:44:45,175 but you're making the animal-- you're putting him 708 00:44:45,175 --> 00:44:50,270 in a situation which in nature, these correlations normally 709 00:44:50,270 --> 00:44:51,400 indicate some cause. 710 00:44:53,970 --> 00:44:56,300 And it was first studied by Pavlov 711 00:44:56,300 --> 00:44:58,670 in a situation that doesn't actually 712 00:44:58,670 --> 00:45:02,850 fit this ethological definition of a stimulus condition. 713 00:45:08,100 --> 00:45:12,705 And I just remind you of Hasenstein's very specific 714 00:45:12,705 --> 00:45:13,205 definition. 715 00:45:13,205 --> 00:45:16,510 If there's a reflex, it's not being 716 00:45:16,510 --> 00:45:18,650 subject to changes in internal readiness. 717 00:45:18,650 --> 00:45:21,745 In other words, there's not an action-specific potential. 718 00:45:21,745 --> 00:45:24,630 There's not a drive that builds up. 719 00:45:24,630 --> 00:45:27,010 That's why we say we wear a mantle of reflexes. 720 00:45:27,010 --> 00:45:28,120 It's always available. 721 00:45:32,256 --> 00:45:35,040 So it's based on built-in mechanisms 722 00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:37,440 underlying the reflex. 723 00:45:40,050 --> 00:45:43,680 And I also point out that some reflexes 724 00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:47,650 are impossible to connect with a conditioned stimulus, 725 00:45:47,650 --> 00:45:51,230 like a tendon reflex. 726 00:45:51,230 --> 00:45:53,380 When you learn it, you'll have a class 727 00:45:53,380 --> 00:45:55,830 in learning that talks about classical conditioning. 728 00:45:55,830 --> 00:45:59,390 And there's no reason why some reflexes couldn't 729 00:45:59,390 --> 00:46:02,020 be conditioned, like the tendon reflexes. 730 00:46:02,020 --> 00:46:03,780 But try as you might, when you try 731 00:46:03,780 --> 00:46:08,812 to get them associated with a new stimulus, it doesn't work. 732 00:46:08,812 --> 00:46:09,895 So they're quite specific. 733 00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:20,240 I think I talked about conditional reflexes 734 00:46:20,240 --> 00:46:22,390 once before. 735 00:46:22,390 --> 00:46:27,745 You remember what I said-- what was actually conditioned 736 00:46:27,745 --> 00:46:30,990 in the dog when the dog starts salivating 737 00:46:30,990 --> 00:46:35,420 in response to the bell in Pavlov's experiments. 738 00:46:35,420 --> 00:46:38,360 It was conditioned appetitive behavior. 739 00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:42,040 And so we will get to that a little later. 740 00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:45,950 It wasn't really stimulus conditioning 741 00:46:45,950 --> 00:46:49,170 and what's become known as conditioned reflexes, 742 00:46:49,170 --> 00:46:52,325 or classical conditioning, type S conditioning. 743 00:46:56,510 --> 00:46:58,530 We'll come back right to this point 744 00:46:58,530 --> 00:47:01,710 next time, starting with avoidance responses acquired 745 00:47:01,710 --> 00:47:03,490 through trauma.