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Comparative Cognition (Associative Processes (Operant conditioning…

- - - - animals thought to form R O relationships proven by devaluation paradigm : avoidance of certain things after devaluing an outcome/reward
    - - if preventing this outcome = omission
      - if producing this outcome = "+" reinforcement
    - - if preventing this outcome = "-" reinforcement
      - if producing this outcome = punishment
    - - overrides devaluation when well-trained and stimulus-response associations are very strong - in this case the outcome doesn't matter
      - Occurs when environment remains relatively stable and responses typically produce the same outcome
  - - - rats associate sickness with poisoned water and shock with sound and light in experiment on taste aversion
      - Pigeons associate taste with visual cues
      - Humans more likely to develop CR to stimuli that predict snakes and or spiders than guns and electricity because of recency in evolutionary history
  - - - In operant conditioning the CS-US pairing is replaced with the lever pressing behaviour
- - - - Dogs 10 000 times more sensitive than ours
    - - Slow loris' eyes adapted to low light - nocturnal with larger opening than humans
      - Bioluminescence: occurs through glowing of internal organs in marine animals - in these envmts animals often have small eyes able to detect bioluminescence emissions which look like blue hues to humans
      - Binocular vison: slight overlapping in visual field that is increased for animals with front facing eyes - this facilitates depth perception
    - - fruit flies have taste-sensitive neurons in legs
    - - Bats echolocate up to 100 Hz, humans up to 20Hz
    - - human specialized touch on face and fingertips
  - - - Frequency coding: intensity is coded through rate of action potentials
      - Population coding: as stimulus intensity increases so does the number of neurons firing (low, medium, and high threshold neurons can only fire certain amoount individually so they can work together)
      - Slowly adapting neurons: fire burst of action potentials at onset of stimulus then continue at slower rate as stimulus remains
      - Rapidly adapting neurons: fire in quick succession both at onset and offset of stimulus
    - - Optic flow: movement of elements in visual scene relative to observer - provides info on how organism is altering its sensory input
    - - Looming: rapid and symmetrical expansion is always perceived as an approaching object - causes fleeing in many organisms (evem present in visually-deprived cats - ie: instinct to duck in 3D movie theatre when an asteroid whizzes above on-screen)
  - - - Guppies placed in tank surrounded by b and w stripes - tested individual responses when stripes made to be red or blue - guppies more sensitive to each colour respectively were then bred and tested for their sensitivity to either red or blue - the sensitivity was passed on (proved heritability of sensory system function)
    - - Sensory bias: tendency to respond to certain stimuli with increased vigour
        
        Greylag geese would incubate artificial eggs over their own if their were larger, more marked, or more colourful than normal
      - Sensory exploitation: preference important to one process co-opted for another - also refers to when trait evolved to capitalize on existing stimulus preference
      - Supernormal stimuli: exaggerated forms of nat. occurring stimuli
  - - - if eyes of kittens or monkeys sewn shut during first few weeks after birth, they never develop normal vision - light-sensitive cells in eyes respond again later, however, corresponding neurons in cortex do not
    - - Guppies deprived of visual input developed heightened olfactory sensation (proves animals can adapt or fine tune systems during lifetime)
      - blind adults have better hearing than seeing people
  - - - Search image: foraging animals hold mental representation of target so they know what to attend to in environment - develop over experience and reduce time and effort spent on searching
    - - Some processes have been made automatic to certain individuals and require less cognition, thus leaving capacity for other simultaneous tasks
- - - - Memory for spatial location
      - Memory for previous visits to location
      - Knowledge of the depletion rate of the resource
    - - Memory for spatial location even if the environment changes (ie: changing seasons)
        
        Caching dependent individuals have better spatial memory specifically than other less caching-dependent individuals
        
        ie: Clark's Nutcracker vs. other caching birds
      - Sometimes, memory of type of food stored
    - - Defending and advertising within a defined territory
      - Actively searching within or beyond territory
  - - - collection of other cognitive processes that facilitate orientation - point organisms in direction using one or more cues as an orientation reference
      - orienting to different environmental cues means fundamental bhvrs aren't restricted to current environmental conditions
      - Conceptualize this as the initial stage of any spatial behaviour
  - - - Environmental geometry: using shape of environment (room shape)
        
        Rotational bias: tendency to use geometric cues over others like smell that leads to systematic errors when cues are rotated or removed
      - Landmarks: stimuli with fixed spatial relation to goal location (example: bees look for next in centre of pinecones no matter how close it actually is to their nest if the pinecones surrounded the nest before they left the nest)
        Beacons: stimuli that indicate goals (the stimulus might be the goal itself)
      - Hippocampus: size may be proportional to navigational experience
      - Path integration(aka dead reckoning)
        
        keeping track of distance and direction of travel to be able to find way home (desert ants use pedometer and sun as directional cue, bees use rate images cross eye surface) - associated with vestibular system in mammals
      - Cognitive maps (debatable how much these are actually employed by animals)
        
        combined knowledge of landmarks and beacons as well as relation to these environmental cues
        
        Evidence that animals can plan novel routes to familiar locations supports this
    - - ie: Monarchs flying to Mexico post-metamorphosis
      - 4 mechanisms: sun, star compass (if travelling at night), magnetic cues, and olfactory cues
        
        mammals don't use sun as much because weather or large objects may make it less reliable
        
        Birds may fly in direction that gas proportions mimic odour profiles as closely as possible to their home
      - Homing: returning to nest or burrow after displacement to distance often unknown site (may have evolved with migration from common process but then had differential pressures affecting which one is employed over another if only doing one)
      - Natal homing: returning to one's birthplace to reproduce
      - Migration time and direction seem to be under genetic control
        
        Migratory restlessness or zugunruhe: period of increased activity of migratory animals in the lab during their typical time of migration
        
        Many first-time migrants will not account for displacement is moved by experimenter - depends on species and conditions surrounding their displacement
      - Humpback whales use combo of sun, star and magnetic cues - experience with certain cues may change dominant use
- - - - N-back task
        
        use of working memory because original stimulus is kept "on-line" to be compared to following stimuli
        
        Performance poor in Alzheimer's patients and those with damage to prefrontal cortex
        
        active process of keeping info in short-term store mediated by neuronal activity in prefrontal cortex
      - Delayed match-to-sample task - often tests pigeon working memory
      - Radial arm maze: rats search arms and then are confined to centre before being able to search again
    - - Declarative: conscious, includes episodic memory and semantic memory - involves awareness of searching for memory
      - Non-declarative: less conscious, includes conditioning and procedural memory (things we know but can't explain)
        
        HM wasn't aware of neither did he have explicit knowledge of mirror task, however, he improved over time because procedural memory does not require those things - he was also capable of perceptual priming
        
        Includes habituation and sensitization, perceptual priming, classical conditioning, and procedural memory
        
        Procedural memory: gradual change in behaviour based on feedback - tested with operant conditioning tasks
  - - - Likely affected most by attention - weaker if attention is divided
      - enhanced/made more durable by elaboration: adding meaning, images, or other complex info to sensory input
        
        unknown if unique to humans, however, given that we elaborate most commonly based of survival value...
      - Chunking: helps get around limit to amount of info nervous system can process
    - - modifying encoded representations so they become more stable over time
      - research certain drugs, distracting stimuli, and new learning prove that there is a short window of time for consolidation to successfully occur
      - process with 2 stages: 1) protein synthesis within minutes to hours 2) changes to synaptic connections and shift in brain areas involved in memory within weeks to years (only observed in mammals thus far)
      - All memories are labile: subject to change; before consolidation - provides a better snapshot of environment this way by being able to add or modify memories pre-consolidation
    - - 2 mechanisms: recognition and recall
        
        Recognition: recognizing what is familiar - no context memory required
        
        Recall: generating info from memory stores without cues or reminders
        
        Both are better if they occur in same context as encoding - sights, sounds, hormonal + emotional states. phase of circadian cycle (golden hamsters did not remember environment where trained and shocked if it were done again at diff time of day)
        
        Proves that forgetting is a failure of retrieval not a decay of memory trace
        
        a reconstruction influenced by current knowledge and emotional state, suggestion, misleading info
        
        Retrieved memories are also labile before reconsolidating
- - - - humans = animals descended through variation
      - there will be differences and similarities bwn related species (behavioural and cognitive)
      - Continuity hypothesis: differences between human and higher animals are of degree and not kind (quantitative not qualitative)
    - - Skinner
        
        only behaviour should be studied in psychology
        
        mentalistic subjects have no place in objective science
      - Morgan's Cannon: no need to attribute complex explanation when there is a simpler one
    - - based on premise bhvrl study should be naturalistic
      - bhvr understood in terms of natural selection
      - Fixed or Modal Action Patterns
        
        many can be modified by experience
      - Timbergen's 4 Questions of Ethology: first 2 are ultimate causes, 3 and 4 are proximate causes of behaviour
        
        Adaptive value
        
        Evolution
        
        Ontogeny
        
        Immediate Causation
    - - Started to allow melding of ethology and comparative psychology