Ecology and Cognition research methods

• Main advantage is observing habitual behaviours animals exhibit in their daily lives; what type of animal study best describes this?

  Studying animal behaviour in the felid
• Main advantage is the experimental control; what best describes the type of animal study setting?

  Approaches laboratory settings
• Why is there a sacrifices ecological validity in lab setting studies?

  • Lab-raised animals might develop different cognitive styles which can affect behavioural repertoire because they are not applying their predation techniques etc
• Why is field work a lot more complex than a controlled laboratory setting?

  However it can often be hard to run controlled field experiments as many animals are scared of humans, they can be nocturnal etc
• List the 4 main elements when studying animal behaviour?

  1. Ecological validity
  2. Experimenter effects
  3. Individual differences
  4. Paradigm / training effects
• Paradigm and training effects relates to the animals prior training or learnt history, which can alter experimental conclusions.
• Clever Hans subliminally cues his horse via his body language which altered subjects reaction, this is an example of?

  Experimenter effects
• Motivation, social tolerance, selective breeding and temperament relates to individuals differences within animal behaviour
• Ecological validity refers to the degree to which the behaviors observed and data gathered in a study reflect and are representative of those that occur in natural, real-world settings
• Factors contributing to evolution

  • Selection
  • Mutation
  • Drift
  • Gene flow
• Step one of Darwin's argument of Evolution

  Species are populations with variations among individuals
• Step four of Darwin's argument of Evolution

  Competition leads to natural selection
• Evolution

  Descent with (inherited) modification. I.e., change in genetic composition of populations over successive generations, eventually leading to the formation of new species
• Ontogeny is the growth or development of a single organism
• Phylogenetics

  • Our place in the tree of life
  • How long lineages have been evolving
  • When and how traits evolve
• Ultimate causation underpins the evolutionary generational reasons behind explaining an individuals behaviour and cognition
• Proximate causation underpins the immediate consequences an individuals environment, situation and genes to explain behaviour and cognition
• Generational evolutionary explanations for behaviour and cognition relates to ultimate causation theory
• past generational (ultimate explanations) present situational(proximate explanations)
• Immediate cause in genes due to environmental situation?

  Proximate causation explanations