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Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing innate (inborn) elements.The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a corresponding clearly defined stimulus.
Early behaviourists, like B.F. Skinner, tended to the blank slate model and argued that innate behaviors and instincts were few, some behaviourists suggesting that the only innate behavior was the ability to learn. [4]
"Fixed action pattern" is an ethological term describing an instinctive behavioral sequence that is highly stereotyped and species-characteristic. [1] Fixed action patterns are said to be produced by the innate releasing mechanism, a "hard-wired" neural network, in response to a sign/key stimulus or releaser.
It posits that subsequent selection might reinforce the originally learned behaviors, if adaptive, into more in-born, instinctive ones. Though this process appears similar to Lamarckism, that view proposes that living things inherited their parents' acquired characteristics. The Baldwin effect only posits that learning ability, which is ...
Instinctive behaviour is usually automatic and unplanned and is a natural reaction which often is preferred by the animal over learned and unnatural actions. [2] This instinctual drift was successfully avoided when they instead taught the raccoons to place a basketball into a basket.
Classical vs. Operant Conditioning. A learned behavior is one that does not come from instincts- it is created by practice or experiences. [2] Learned behavior can be controlled by two systems- reflective or reflexive, which in turn create cognitive learning and habitual learning. [2]
While some species-typical behavior is learned from the parents, it is also sometimes the product of a fixed action pattern, also known as an innate releasing mechanism (IRM). In these instances, a neural network is 'programmed' to create a hard-wired, instinctive behavior in response to an external stimulus.
How vs. why questions: Proximate view How an individual organism's structures function Ontogeny (development) Developmental explanations for changes in individuals, from DNA to their current form Mechanism (causation) Mechanistic explanations for how an organism's structures work Ultimate (evolutionary) view