Chapter 12- Social Learning – Flashcards

Social learning: copying from others • food preferences • mate choice • mimicry • imitation • So far, we've been strudyng behaviors of isolated animals • But many species live in groups • Think about the birds that you hear in the morning, they are highly territorial and they don't interact with their con specifics except with their mates and neighbors • There are lots of animals that live in big groups, complex organization o Example bees: they have elders that may be in control o Zebras - herds o Flamingo - colonial o Social organization in primtes, some species of birds that are based on family groups

1. Food 2. Protection from predators 3. Reproduction

o Advantage of living in a group, there is a collection of food. Instead of having to look where there is food, you can follow by example of where some other animal got food. If the animal has that strategy there will be plumping. o If there are locations where there is a lot of food there, if there are patches, this will drive animals to that location. If there is food that is evenly spread out. If you can mitigate it, there will be competition for the food because they all knew the food was there. On the one hand, you get information about food when you are in a group, but when you are alone you don't have comptetition

advantage when you are in a group, you can share the amount of vigilance. The zebras will have their heads in the grass, and the others will be looking around for predators and if they see the predators they will be able to respond and escape. You don't need everyone in the group to lookout, more time for getting food. If there are safe locations for where you can sleep, protect from predators, sea gulls, sleep in the nets. If you are in a large group, you have less a chance of being picked by the predator

finding a mate is incredibly important in order to pass your genes. This can require a lot of effort. The bears are very antisocial, so they have to travel a large distance to find their mates. If you are in a group it is easier. If there are a lot of chicks in a penguin colony, the chicks are able to be protected by the colony. Disadvantage - males compete for females, squabbling for reproductive resources. Depending on the animals life history, it will determine if the animal will live in groups and be social. If the animal has to live in a certain are and it develops a better handling of living in groups it will be able to succeed more

• Living in groups has clear advantages for foraging and predator defense, but it also creates conflict • Selective pressure for cognitive processes that can mitigate these conflicts • general intelligence or socially-specific intelligence? o More developed brains for cognitive processes o Is this intelligence required to live in these groups a general intelligence or processes that are more developed. Or is there something specific of social learning that is different from classical learning

• Brain and neocortex size is correlated with group size o May also be explained by sensory processing o Shows that as the size of the group increases, so does the size of the brain.

• fruits are more difficult to locate and more variable than leaves o If you forage on fruit, it is more perishable, certain trees are more perishable and they are only in certain areas. There was evolution from moving from leaves to fruit. An alternative explanation for social behavior was the intelligence to find fruit and then because you were dealing with a restricted resource, you already developed an intelligence to handle it

Fear of snake is aquired through watching the behavior of another animal, through observational conditioning. But this might just be an innate disposition. experiement: blackbirds saw monkey get frightened by snake video--> were scared of snake. But when they saw monkey get scared from flower video--> were not scared of flowers.

• Conspecifics (members of same species) are an important source of information • Reason why we want to learn from other individuals is because we can learn what is right and wrong from observation. • Learning from others' mistakes is better than making your own

• A demonstrator performs a task while an observer is watching • The observer is tested later • Learning → copying of demonstrator's actions

• diet selection and foraging • mate selection • avoiding predators

• Omnivores like rats have to learn which food are food to eat o Rats acquire food preferences in utero and while nursing • Food that the mom eats, the odorants are passed through the embryo in the uterus and even through the breast milk o Rats also prefer to eat food eaten by companions • This is good functionally, because if your companion has eaten food and is still up and running around you know it wont kill you

The observer rat • Examine all the possibilities, one way to eliminate the rat from communicated vocally, anesthesize it. Dust the rats snout with anesthesized and then put the observer in there. • In rats, two necessary components: o Smell of food • The food has to be on the rats snout, or squirt into the rats stomach so it was breathing out o Smell the rats breath • Rats breathe out carbon disulfide o This is sufficient to cause the learned preference in the observer o Think about this as pavlovaian training - breath is the US and paired with a food item and enters an association and causes the rat to seek out that US. o Explain this social learning using simple processes like pavlovian training.

o Increased attention to an object that the demonstrator conspecific is interacting with o Stimulus enhacement explains why the observer rat is more attracted, if the demonstrator rat ate cocoa, then the observer would eat the cocoa. o Explaination for the information transfer: the observer now pays more attention to the stimulus that the demonstrator was interacting with

o They put rats in a food chamber which is shown by the stymatic. JH is Japanese horseradish, the other cayan pepper. Allowed the rats to eat one of the items, remove from cage and then inject with lithium chloride and then they ate the toehr food exclusively. The experimenter but another naïve rat aquire the preference for the cayan pepper like the other with the taste aversion. Successively replaced all the members with naïve members o Results: plot in the middle, two group, conditioned to avoid JH AND CP, day one they are the founders (prefer one food over the other), day two remove one of the founders, by the time they get to Day 5 there are no more original members, the preference for the food that didn't make you sick was preferred. o Social learning can be transmitter in a way that is specific to culture as generations are passed down. o Not learned by observed the demonstrating, learning them olfactorally. Develop a preference foor the food, this can be explained by the stimulus enhancement

• Choosing a mate is extremely important to fitness, especially for the sex that invests the most energy in reproduction (usually ♀) • strong sexual selective pressure on ♂ to advertise fitness • strong sexual selective pressure on ♀to be choosy • Mate choice can be costly • opportunity cost (could be foraging, etc) • predation risk • copying others' choices can reduce this cost • Female guppies, quail, and other species prefer to mate with a male that has a partner

• Animals spend a lot of energy avoiding predators, so learning what's safe can save a lot of energy •With predators, when you watch a flock of birds, the least noise will make them fly up to the tree because they are not feeding. They spend a lot of energy to avoid predators • Learning what is safe can save you a lot of energy and this is easier if you see it from others

• associating a cue or object with an affective state or behavior by watching a demonstrator respond to it • Demonstrator's response (US) evokes response from observer (UR) o Mobbing, if there is a big hawk, there will be little birds harassing it. Ther are a lot of reason, mostly defensive mechanism. Normally indivuduals only mob predators, there is a cost t o it o Demonstrator sees an owl and elicits a mobbing response. The observer sees the mobbing and the individual on the left will elicit a mobbing response to the right. There is a benefit to going towards the other individual. There is an unconditioned response to the mobbing. This gets paired with the coke bottle and acquires a mobbing response to the coke bottle o Demonstrates that animals can learn what other animals are dangerous. • Also seen in monkeys that raise snakes, they are not afraid of the snake. If you take a wild monkey, they will elicit a strong response

copying the response of a demonstrator when it foes not result in any tangible reward. • The animal might enjoy mimicking for reasons we don't understand • People who have birds (parrots) have probably observed this. • Moore 1992 o African grey parrot o The parrot had a trainer that would come into the room. Raised under a lot of human interaction. The trainer would say "nod" and then nod, "ciao" and wave and "look at my tongue" and stick out its tongue. Over time the parrot started saying the word and doing the action. This is almost impossible to explain through instrumental conditioning. There is no social reinforcement that is used to train other animals. Those response of waving and saying ciao, there is no reward, they are not doing it for food. Also interesting how the animal would have translated the waving and viewing it to transfer to its own motor programs for it to do it himself. • Difficutl to explain as instrumental conditioning • Also unknown how animals translate visual information to motor programs o Nodding is perceptually opaque • Song birds o It may do immitations of other animals, all this falls under mimicry. Goes along with social intelligence

• Copying a behavior that leads to a tangible reward • Blue tits and great tits break through foil of milk bottle tops o Is this learned through imitation? o Alternative explanation in pavlovian conditioning: foil = CS, milk = US

o Example of a type of test that was used to test for imitation. These tests must be carefully controlled, stimulus enhancement, control for the possibility that the person was controlling for the approach of not understanding or classical training of associating the action with a reward or the trial and error learning. One explaination for the young chimps using the stick, it sees another chimp using the stick, and then it begins to use it to develop an understanding of how to use it. This test is not imitation, it is attracted to the object and then uses it. For true imitation, the animal must see the use of the stick and then do something

• Need to control for o Stimulus enhancement (increased attention to object) o Trial and error learning (reinforcement)

o trainer gives instruction "do this" and performs an action o test whether observer copied novel bevhaiors o Novel behaviors were never rewarded (no trial and error learning) o This is a very powerful test, requires a human trainer. There are control issues that when I say to do this, there is no translation for the monkey

• Test whether observer copies specific actions of demonstrator • Controls for: • stimulus enhancement • emulation: copying some elements of the action (e.g., the goal) • learning affordances: acquired knowledge about what can be done with an object

copying some elementrs of the action (e.g. the goal) • Trained a mokneky to take a rake and pull some item of food towards it. If the observer starts to shake it at the food, it is emulating the observer, but it is not imitating it but emulating it. It knows that the rake is associated with the food, has not picked up the actual nature of the action

acquired knowledge about what can be done with an object • Learning about the environment, what can be done with it, semantic knowledge. The rat that is pushing the lever to the right, the affordance is that the lever will get you food. • If the rat is imitating the demonstrator - it will copy the specific behavior done by the demonstrator • Controls for the possibilities by giving the observer miultiple actions and seeing if it chooses exactly what is observed. • Need to do a ghost control - train the demonstrator to say peck and if the bird stands on it. • You would just remove the demonstrator and use a robotic way to show the pedal being depressed and then seeing the food be released. Does there need to be a conspecific

• sensorimotor models- Listen to someone say something and translate it into a motor program. Brain develops models that help it translate the things in your brain • mirror neurons-Neurons in the brain that respond when an animal observes a demonstrator do the task and when itself does the tasks o Forward model - motor commands to sensory, o Inverse - sensory to the motor representation o Both of these models developed in connection to each other and a form of learning o Basis of consciousness and empathy o Seem to provide a mechanism for imitation learning

o Selective advantages for transmitting useful information to offspring o Expect that mechanisms that help to transmit information are likely to be translated through evolution. o What looked like the older chimp teaching the younger chimp, there is the example teaching

o Rat experiment, the passing of behavioral tradition. • Are the cognitive processes in social learning distinct from domain general processes Cultural transmission in wild animals • Population-specific behavior traditions o Acquired through experience • Not innate o found throughout a well-defined population • Persist from generation to generation • Not found in other populations of the same species o Need to control for utility of the behavior • Tool use in chimpanzees (whiten) o Measure 65 beahviors at 7 sites o Determine whether absent behaviors have ecological explanations o Some behaviors (e.g. termite fishging

• Benefit of living in social groups • Different from social learning, social learning is just observing and acquiring information from that, in cooperation they behave this way -outcome in which two individuals each obtain a net benefit • an individual acting in a way that would potentially benefit it and its partner

o Social grooming • Grooming each other • "allopreening" - o Care for young • Animals that live in groups cooperate in raising the next generation • Supurb starling, the birds live in social groups of 10 to 15 individuals. Unique feature is that the climate is variable (some years a lot of rain and sometimes not too much, rain determines insects, insects determines the amount of chicks that can be laid). The individuals that do not breed will help the ones that do. o Jointly hunting • Chimps hunt in troops • Dogs hunt in groups, they capture prey together • Elephants tend to work together because they need to travel to get food o Predator vigilance • Looking out for predators o Related to the instability in the environment, animals that work together makes it more possible for them to survive

• recipient benefits → more offspring • actor doesn't benefit → fewer or same # of offspring • fewer altruists in next generation • if behavior is heritable, it will ultimately die out

• Idea that if you do something for a group you will also benefit • Doing something "for the good of the group" • Group that have more altruist will have better fitness • BUT o The best situation is to be in an altruistic group but cheat • Get all the benefits when all the individuals take the risks • The cheaters will do better, and the cheating behavior, if heritable, will take over in the group • Groups don't reproduce, individuals do o So selection acts at the level of the individual o Problem for group selection theory, most evolutionary biologists will tell you that group selection does not happen. Fairly discredited theory because of cheating • Selfish genes o Actually, selection on genes o Richard Dawkins • Suggested that you can have a gene that will benefit itself, increase its chances of being passed down, that may be bad for yourself as an individual • Ex. Cancer o Genes that don't have a reason for sticking around, there may be a gene that is attributed to having children but will become cancerous will be selected for. Genes don't act in your interest o Genes may have effects that increase the gene's transmission o At a cost to the individual

• Doing something that benefits your kin o Increases your inclusive fitness • Fitness - number of offspring that you have that carry on your genes • Your own offspring and the genes that are reproduced in other individuals (inclusive fitness) • Probability of having the same allele to another individual depends on how closely related you are to that individual

your own offspring (fitness) plus your genes reproduced in others o The more genes you share with an individual, the more interest you have in helping them

how much of your genetic material shared with another individual • 1/2: parent, sibling, and child • 1/4: grandparents, aunts/uncles, nieces/nephews • 1/8: cousins

• An individuals should be altruistc if • C < B * r • The cost (c) should be smaller than the benefit multiplied by relatedness • Example: an individual may delay reproduction (c = 0.5) to help its sibling raise at least three additional offspring (0.25 * 3) • Question: would you lay down your life for your brother • "No, but I would for two brothers or eight cousins

o Half of your genes end up in the child and half are from the partner o If you have two children, on average one copy of each of your genes will survive o If you have four nieces, on average one copy of each of your genes survives o This means, if you sacrifice yourself for four nieces, 'your genes' have lost nothing

o Evolution selects for behaviors that benefit kin even if this is at the expense of the individual o Net benefit if you kill yourself and the two brothers continue o The gene that was beneficial would grow through evolution and be favored

• No: Kin selection will operate as long as altruists are more likely to help kin than non-kin • This is why many social groups comprise of related individuals

o Cooperation between male chimpanzees is greater than cooperation between females • Males are more related o In chimps, females disperse form the natal troop, where as males tend to stay • Males are more related to each other females • Males share more genetic sequences that are similar • Inbreeding is bad and they are aware of that so the females leave

o Highly social mammal; breeds in colonies o Females breed near their birthplace (males disperse) o Squirrels give two kinds of alarm calls • Trill for ground predators • Altruistic • Alerts all the animals that they could be in danger but increases its probability of being chosen against • Whistle for airborne predators o Individuals that trill have higher mortality than those that don't o Females much more likely to trill than males • They benefit its neighbors, the females neighbors will be related to her • The male does not improve its intrusive fitness

• If the probability was equal, what would you expect • Consistent with the idea of kin selection • The females will put themselves at risk more than the males, this is consistent with the theory that females will help the females that are related to them

• Unrelated individuals, concurrent benefits o You scratch my back while I'm scratching yours o Hence, not really altruism because either party can break things off • Examples: cleaner fish o Cleaner eat parasites on surface of other "client" fish o Client fish usually large predators → benefit from fewer parasites • The predators do not eat them, they cooperate by not eating the cleaners, they receive the benefit of being cleaned o Cleaners may cheat by eating mucus instead of parasites • The fish have a mucus coating that protects them from salt and other things, so it is bad for them. They will respond by... o Clients will chase these cleaners off o Good cleaning behavior is directly reinforced o All boils down to instrumental learning • Cleaner performs a behavior that gets it food • Through the same process of instrumental learning • The clients learn which locations are the best

• Unrelated individuals, delayed benefits o The recipient has an opportunity to cheat or defect o The best strategy is to always renege, even if the benefits of cooperating are greater o Theoretically, this is the most interesting scenario. The best strategy is usually not to reciprocate. There should be no selective pressure for behaviors that reciprocate, there should be some for genes that are selfish.

o Uses game theory to examine this problem o The game is the prisoner's dilemma • Based on a hypothetical situation where two people are taken into custody and accused of some crime (doesn't matter if they commited it), two options, one is to stay silent or to squeal and tell on the other guy.

1) If both stay quiet, 1 year 2) If you remain silent and your buddy confesses, he gets out with no sentence and you are stuck for 20 years 3) If you both confess you both get 5 years 4)If you confess, you get out and your friend stays for 20 years • if you both cooperate, reward - mutually beneficial to both of you • If you both defect - you get p that is less than the reward

• The relationship between outcomes is important • T > R > P > S • R > ( S + T) / 2 • If R > T, then neither has an incentive to defect • You would have mutualism

the best strategy is to defect

• cooperate on first move • do whatever the other player did on subsequent moves

TIT FOR TAT was the most successful, even though it occasionally lost to ALL D • Other strategies that were successful had three traits in common: • niceness: never the first to defect • provocable: retaliated to defections • forgiving: return to being nice after retaliating once

can a strategy survive against a diverse playing field?• Simulated evolution: • allow a diverse group of strategies to play each other at random • advance strategies to next round based on their scores • see which ones win out • Based on the those examples shown, the two strategies more successful here would be TFT or ALL D • ALL C is going to do terrible because if it plays other mean ones it will • Round 2 o More ALL D AND TFT o No ALL C o More individuals from the parents that were successful o Because TFT got more points, as the population grows, it will cooperate with more individuals, it will do better and better o Better to have a cooperative society with a few cheaters • Round 3 o ALL TFT

• Simulated evolution: • start with a population with one strategy • add a few "mutants" and see if they can take over • ALL C is not stable • TFT is stable and wins in the long run • ALL D cannot do well because of TFT does with each other • ALL D is also very stable, the ALL C will die out with all D. • TFT is not great for invading o Everyone is mean? TFT won't do any better

• Can a cooperative strategy ever invade a non-cooperative population • TFT, no benefit for this gene in an enivornment where everyone is mean • Not without some other incentive to cooperate, like kin selection • Cooperating with kin results in incentive fitness • Once the behavior is established it can spread to unrelated individuals • Scenario for the emergence of cooperation in primate societies,. o Start at kin and then seeing as that was successful, cooperate with other

• What's necessary for reciprocal altruism • Recognition: ability to discriminate between different individuals • Memory: you need to remember the history of your interactions with an individual o This may be as simple as a single "emotion association" • Planning (optiona): it helps to be able to predict the consequences of an interaction