<aside> 🌟 Domjan Chapter 2

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• Elicited responses involved in habituation and sensitization, which are involved in all learning procedures
• This chapter:
  • Describes most prominent starting points for learning while describing the fundamentals of elicited behavior
  • Describes how elicited behavior can be modified by experience through habituation and sensitization

The Concept of the Reflex

• Reflex: involves two closely related events: eliciting stimulus and corresponding response
  • The stimulus and response are linked
  • Stimulus presented, followed by the response
    • Response rarely occurs in the absence of the stimulus
  • Ex: stimulus: dust in nassal passage → response: sneeze
• Organization of the nervous system is what makes the stimulus and response have this relation
• Simple reflexes mediated by 3 neurons:
  • Sensory neuron (afferent neuron): transmits sensory message to spinal cord
  • Motor neuron (efferent neuron): activates the muscles involved in the reflex response
  • Interneuron: the sensory and motor neurons rarely communicate directly, and instead impulses from one another are relayed through this neuron
  • These three neurons (sensory, motor, interneuron) work together to constitute the reflex arc
• Additional neural structures can also be involved in eliciting reflexes
  • Ex: sensory messages may be relayed to the brain, which modifies the reflex action
• Reflexes: think baby’s drinking milk from nipples
• Milk-letdown reflex
• Respiratory occlusion reflex: stimulated by a reduction of air flow to the baby (cloth covering face / mucus in nasal passages) → baby pulls back head

Model Action Patterns (MAPs)

• Some types of elicited behavior occur in just one species or in a small group of a related species
  • Ex: parent gulls, chicks peck on bills, parents regurgitate, chicks get nourished
• Model Action Patterns (MAPs): response sequences that are specific to a particular species
  • Species-typical MAPs identified in many aspects of animal behavior
    • Sexual behavior, territorial defense, aggression, prey capture
  • Important to MAPs is that the threshold for eliciting activities varies
    • The same stimulus can have different effects depending on the physiological state of the animal

Eliciting Stimuli for Modal Action Patterns

• Easy to identify in the case of a simple reflex, like infant suckling
• The stimulus for a MAP can be more difficult to isolate if the response occurs in the course of complex social interactions
• Sign stimulus (releasing stimulus)
  • Once a sign stimulus has been identified, it can be exaggerated to elicit an especially vigorous response
• Supernormal stimulus: an exaggerated sign stimulus
• Ex: eating behavior
  • Elicited by the taste of food in the mouth
  • Something that tastes sweet and is high in fat content is effective in encouraging eating
  • By adding sugar + fat content, one can create a supernormal stimulus for eating
  • This is well known in the fast-food industry