Animal Behavior - Chpt. 4 Reading Notes

Front 1

What do herring gull chicks pay attention to when feeding?

Back 1

The shape of the bill and its red dot.

Front 2

What happened to the fixed action response of the goose rolling its egg into the next?

Back 2

The bird would continue pulling its head back just as if an egg were still balanced against the underside of its bill.

Front 3

What is ethology?

Back 3

The discipline dedicated to the study of both the proximate and ultimate causes of animal behavior; especially interested in the instincts exhibited by wild animals living under natural conditions.

Front 4

What is an instinct?

Back 4

A behavior that appears in fully functional form the first time it is performed, even though the animal may have had no previous experience with the cues.

Front 5

What is the neural network called that is responsible for detecting the simple cue?

Back 5

sign stimulus/releaser

Front 6

What is responsible for activating the instinct?

Back 6

Fixed action patter/innate releasing mechanism

Front 7

Describe the structure of the noctuid moth's ear that allows it to hear ultrasound.

Back 7

The tympanic membrane lies over a chamber on the side of a thorax; It's attached to two neurons, the A1 and A2 auditory receptors. The A1 and A2 receptors respond to the energy contained in selected stimuli by changing the permeability of their cell membranes to positively charged ions. As positively charged ions flow in, they change the electrical charge inside the cell relative to the charge on the other side of the membrane. As positively charged ions flow in, they change the electrical charge inside the cell relative to the charge on the other side of the membrane. If the If the inward movement of ions is sufficiently great, the electrical charge difference across the membrane may occur and spread to neighboring portions of the membrane - the "transmission line" of the cell.

Front 8

What is the brief, all-or-nothing change in electrical charge called, that causes the signal used by neurons to communicate?

Back 8

Action potential

Front 9

What type of nerve cells are A1 and A2 receptors?

Back 9

interneurons

Front 10

What is a ganglion?

Back 10

A neural structure composed of a highly organized mass of neurons

Front 11

What is the A1 receptor sensitive to?

Back 11

Ultrasounds of a low to moderate intensity.

Front 12

What is the A2 receptor sensitive to?

Back 12

Relatively loud ultrasounds.

Front 13

Does the A1 receptor fire more frequently to pulses of sound or steady, uninterrupted sounds?

Back 13

Pulses of sound

Front 14

How can moths detect whether the predator is higher or lower?

Back 14

If the predator is higher than the moth, then with every up-and-down movement of the insect's wings, there will be a corresponding fluctuation in the rate of firing of the A1 receptors. IF the bat is lower than the moth, there will be no such fluctuation in neural activity.

Front 15

How do the moth sound receptors interact?

Back 15

As the moth turns away from the relatively intense ultrasound reaching one side of its body, it will reach a point at which both A1 cells are equally active; at this moment, it will be facing in the opposite direction from the bat and will be heading away from danger.

Front 16

Describe the int-1 cell in the cricket.

Back 16

The int-1 cell is part of a neural circuit that helps crickets steer away from ultrasound

Front 17

What is the flight path of the cricket controlled by?

Back 17

Controlled by the position of the insect's hind leg, which, when lifted into a hindwing, alters the beat of that wing and thereby changes the cricket's position in space.

Front 18

What is the central pattern generator?

Back 18

Mechanism by which the simple neural network imposes order on the activity of motor neurons

Front 19

What is stimulus filtering?

Back 19

The ability of neurons and neural networks to ignore vast amounts of potential information in order to focus on biologically relevant elements within the diverse stimuli bombarding an animal.

Front 20

Do the A1 receptors in moths discriminate between different ultrasonic frequencies?d

Back 20

No

Front 21

What are Eimer's organs?

Back 21

Tiny sensory devises in 11 appendages on each side of a star-nosed moles nose.

Front 22

What is a listener's perception of spoken language heavily influenced by?

Back 22

Visual cue provided by the moving lips of a speaker

Front 23

What is fact recognition dependent on?

Back 23

An intact fusiform gyrus; people who have suffered an injury to this part of the brain are no longer able to recognize people by their faces