CAB- motivation

• Motivation


  The study of the internal and external 'causes' of behaviour (short-term)
• Also known as the study of


  • Motivation
  • Fear
  • Flight
  • Distance to group
  • Reproductive state
  • Novelty
  • Freeze
  • Fight
• What is motivation?


  Motivation as a "causal" explanation for animal behaviour
• Motivational states include


  • Thirst
  • Hunger
  • Fear
  • Urges to migrate
  • Mate
  • Nest-build
  • Dust bathe
• Motivations


  • They are internal states which vary in magnitude from one moment to the next
  • They help determine which stimuli animals will react to and which they will not
  • They help determine which goals they seek out and which they do not
  • They help determine the effort or intensity with which they will perform a given behaviour
• Motivations are examples of


  Causal explanations for behaviour, meaning that they are a proximate, mechanistic explanation for why an animal is currently performing a particular behaviour pattern
• Play


  Ultimate level (evolutionary level): it has a long-term function in adding survival

  Proximate level (short-term factors that control behaviour): In 'poor' conditions animals will play less – despite the long term considerations animals make 'short-term decisions' based on current conditions (combination of internal and external stimuli)
• We do not invoke motivation to explain behaviours that are always elicited in the same way by the same stimuli (e.g. reflexes like blinking, or rapid limb withdrawal from painful stimuli)
• We do not invoke motivation to explain changes in the cues that animals respond to as a result of learning
• We do not invoke motivation to explain many of the behavioural changes that result from developmental processes (e.g. maturation) or illness (e.g. ceasing to eat because of a gum abscess)
• Animal behaviour that motivation helps explain

  Changes in motivational state help explain the decisions made by an individual when faced with choices about what activity to do next
• If you watch an animal for any period of time you will notice that it engages in different behaviour patterns, apparently spontaneously switching between these intervals e.g. a cat might switch from feeding to drinking, from hunting to resting etc. throughout the day
• Sometimes decision making can impact welfare
• Changes in motivational state


  Help explain why sometimes external stimuli act as powerful triggers for behaviour, but at other times why they are effectively ignored
• E.g. a pet bird deprived of suitable substrate in which to dust bathe, will dust bathe vigorously when it is finally allowed access to e.g. wood shavings. Once they have finished doing this, for a while afterwards the same wood shavings will lose their ability to stimulate the bird to preform any dust bathing
• Along with increased probability of occurrence of a specific behaviour pattern, we typically see other changes as well, such as


  • Increased rates of performance
  • Increased efforts made to perform the behaviour if obstacles are placed in the animal's way
• Motivational states as intervening variables


  E.g. drinking behaviour – as the motivational state of thirst increases, the probability that drinking will occur also increases but also: The range of liquids found acceptable increases, The latency to start drinking decreases, The rate of drinking and the amount consumed also increase, If the animal has to pay a cost to drink it will also be more willing to do so, and this might involve learning novel responses
• One reason for animals being prepared to perform effortful responses is that being unable to perform highly motivated behaviours is frustrating and accompanied by negative emotions, where as performing them is accompanied by positive ones
• Serious thirst is subjectively unpleasant, while water also tastes wonderful when we are thirsty
• Behavioural and emotional changes are induced by a suite of diverse events or 'inputs' originating from physiological signals from the body (e.g. hormonal changes, signals of homeostatic need) and sensory input from the external world
• The motivation to drink can be elicited by


  • Just having eaten
  • A dry mouth
  • Hypernatremia (high blood sodium levels)
  • The sight of another animal drinking
  • The smell of a very palatable drink
  • The sight or sound of other external cues, that through learning, have come to be associated with drinking
• Motivational states are best conceptualised as intervening variables that provide an integrative link between various functionally related inputs and behavioural outputs
• Motivation: Modulation of decision making processes (Toates, 1986)


  1. Internal decision-making process

  2. External factors act as incentives

  3. Hours of deprivation

  4. Dry food

  5. Saline injection

  6. Rate of lever pressing

  7. Volume of water drunk

  8. Quinine tolerated
• Adapted from Miller, 1959
• Where and how do motivational states occur?


  The brain drives and controls behaviour - motivational states arise in the brain

  A motivational state can be defined as the combined physiological and perceptual state of an animal, as represented in its brain
• Behaviourists have traditionally treated animals as 'black boxes' meaning they are not interested in the details of the internal mechanism
• More recently the precise physiological mechanisms have become of interest esp. in neurobiology and hormone research
• The interaction of internal and external stimuli


  Motivational states can be induced by internal (signs from the body), external (cues in the world) stimuli and the interaction between them (i.e. how they combine in the animal)
• Motivational cues


  • Internal: Dehydration signals, Low energy signals, Reproductive hormones

  External: Time of day, Season (resource availability), Smell of food, Predator cues, Rival conspecifics, Movement, Squeaks and struggles of prey
• Significance of motivation / causation for welfare


  Behavioural problems which affect animal under the artificial conditions (e.g. barking) can be seen as having motivational 'causes' – if we understand these causes we can perhaps remove the 'triggers' for these behaviours
• Significance of motivation / causation for welfare

  We can also potentially identify stimuli which are important to animals and enhance their welfare
• Cages for small rodents: Small caged mammals like gerbils often develop stereotypic (SS) behaviour such as repetitive digging. Just being able to dig in sand did not prevent (SS). SS were prevented if gerbils had access to a tunnel & a chamber (but not a chamber alone).
• Significance of motivation / causation for welfare


  Animal motivation has been proposed as one important route to identifying animals' 'needs' and allow animals to tell us what stimuli are important to them
• Conflict Behaviour


  • Actions performed when two or more motivational systems are aroused and cannot be expressed at the same time
  • Displacement behaviour
  • Redirected behaviour
  • Intention movements
  • Ambivalence
• Black boxes


  The approach of behaviorists in which they focus solely on the inputs (stimuli) and outputs (responses) of an organism's behavior, ignoring the internal mechanisms or processes.
• Red boxes


  A hypothetical term that implies a focus on internal mechanisms and processes of an organism's behavior, which is contrary to the behaviorist approach.