Animal Behaviour - Distance Learning Course

Learn to evaluate the behavioural characteristics of animals

People who study animal behavior are concerned with understanding the causes, functions, development, and evolution of behaviour.

Many jobs that involve working with animals also involve some knowledge of animal behaviour. These include employment as:

• veterinary assistants
• animal caretakers at zoos, universities, and research institutions
• animal psychologists
• companion animal trainers
• pet store workers
• animal control officers

An understanding of animal behaviour is important in any situation where a person works with animals.

Graduate Comment:

"I found the course to be well written and explained, any queries I had were answered quickly, and the staff to be very friendly and helpful. In all the course has been invaluable. I am a little sad it is near the end as I have enjoyed the whole course"

S. Crosbie Ross

Lesson Structure

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction: Influences and motivation.
   • What is behaviour
   • Causes of behaviour (eg. genetics, learning, external and internal influences)
   • Reactive, active and cognitive behaviour
   • Conditioning
2. Genetics and Behaviour.
   • Understanding biology
   • Natural selection
   • Genetic variation
   • Development of behaviour
   • Behavioural genetics
3. Animal Perception and Behaviour.
   • How animals perceive things
   • What stimulates them and how do those stimuli function
   • Instinct
   • Neural control
   • Sensory processes, sight, sound, hearing etc.
4. Behaviour and the Environment.
   • Coordination
   • Orientation
   • Homeostasis
   • Acclimatisation
   • Circadian rhythms
   • Biological clocks
   • Reproductive cycles etc.
5. Social Behaviour.
   • Animal Societies
   • Aggression
   • Social constraints
   • Social order
   • Play
   • Biological clocks
   • Communication
6. Learning
   • Instinct and Learning.
   • Conditioning and learning
   • Extinction and habituation
   • Instrumental learning
   • Reinforcement
   • Operant behaviour
   • Biological and cognitive aspects of learning
7. Handling Animals.
   • Psychological affects of different handling techniques
   • Training animals (horses, cats, dogs, etc).
   • The student has a choice of which types of animals to focus on, though a variety will still be covered.
8. Behavioural Problems.
   • Abnormal behaviour (eg. Psychotic, neurotic);
   • Domestication of animals
   • Reducing human contact
   • Reducing human dependence

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Identify factors affecting animal behaviour.
• Describe the influence of genes on animal behaviour.
• Explain how animals perceive and how they respond to various stimuli.
• Explain the influence of environment factors, such as circadian rhythms, on biological clocks, reproductive cycles, orientation and other animal behaviour.
• Explain the social influences on animal aggression, play, sexual behaviour, communication and other behaviour.
• Describe different ways that animals learn (such as conditioning and habituation) and some effects of learning on behaviour.
• Discuss psychological implications of different handling techniques.
• Identify abnormal animal behaviour (eg. psychotic, neurotic behaviour) and ways to reduce dependence on humans.

ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR COURSE - SAMPLE NOTES

LEARNED BEHAVIOUR

Ivan Pavlov was a pioneer in Classical Conditioning. His theory was based on his findings while experimenting with dogs. Pavlov observed the relationship between an unconditioned stimulus (eg. a dish of food) and an unconditioned response (eg. salivating at the mouth). He recognised that this was a natural, unlearned response. He proceeded to experiment with the possibilities of associating another stimulus (light) with the unconditioned stimulus (food), so that the dog would be conditioned to respond to the light by salivating.

Pavlov set up the dog in a soundproof laboratory, with a special device to measure the salivating response (attached to the salivary gland). A light was then turned on following delivery of meat powder by remote control. A high degree of salivation was measured. The procedure was repeated so that the dog was conditioned to associate the light with food. The repetition of this procedure is called reinforcement. It reinforces the association between light and food. When the experimenter turned on the light, without presenting food, the dog still salivated copiously. This form of learning is called "classical conditioning".

The light is the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the salivation now a conditioned response (CR).  If the conditioned behaviour is not reinforced (i.e. if the conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus) then the conditioned response slowly disappears. This is called extinction. Extinction is the elimination of a learned behaviour.

Learned behaviour can be unlearned on condition that the reinforcement that maintains the behaviour is totally removed. (If reinforcement is occasionally removed, the behaviour it reinforces may strengthen in intensity).

Classical conditioning may differ in form according to the time lapse between the presentation of the unconditioned stimulus (eg. food) and the controlled stimulus (eg. light):

·        With simultaneous conditioning, the light and the food are produced simultaneously.

·        With delayed conditioning, the light is turned on for a period before the food is presented.

·        With trace conditioning, the light is turned on for a while then turned off before the presentation of food.

Different schools of psychology interpret Pavlov's research discoveries in different ways.  It was the traditional behaviourists that took Pavlov’s results into their fold, so to speak.  They used his research to validate their mechanistic view of human behaviour, perceiving the learning process involved as an automatic process.  They adopted Pavlov’s assumption that the learning is based on the temporal closeness of the two stimuli. The conditioned association between the unconditioned stimuli and conditioned stimuli would not, in their view, have occurred unless the two stimuli were presented at more or less the same time.

On the other hand, cognitive psychologists interpret Pavlov’s results in a different fashion. They give more thought to what happens inside the organisms mind. No response would occur in their view, unless the organism was capable of actively processing received information.

According to these theorists, the organism observes that conditioned stimuli and the unconditioned stimuli occur together, and stores this information in memory. When the conditioned stimulus is presented, the organism remembers its previous simultaneous occurrence with the unconditioned stimulus, and thus responds in expectation of the uncontrolled stimulus. The difference between these two interpretations might seem small, but their psychological implications are profoundly different.