Fixed Action Patterns

4 Key excerpts on "Fixed Action Patterns"

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  eBook - ePub

  Key Concepts in Developmental Psychology

  • H Rudolph Schaffer(Author)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  ethogram for each species, that is, to put together an inventory of the behaviour patterns that characterize a given species and that distinguish it from other species in the same way that its physical characteristics distinguish it. Such behaviour patterns are known as Fixed Action Patterns, which can be defined as –

   

  complex innate behavioural sequences of a species-typical nature.

  Fixed Action Patterns are complex in comparison with reflexes; they are innate in that they are common to all members of the species and have survival value; and the total array of these patterns, namely the ethogram, can be used to identify individual animals as belonging to a particular species.

  Each pattern is triggered by a specific SIGN STIMULUS, that being –

   

  the par ticular environmental feature that automatically releases a par ticular fixed action pattern.

  Also known as releasers, sign stimuli are to Fixed Action Patterns what a key is to a lock – an analogy that describes well their functioning. They imply a selective responsiveness on the part of the animal to a specific environmental feature which is usually found from the very first exposure – for example, a moving object will release the following response in certain species of birds (the imprinting phenomenon); the red belly of a male stickleback fish will trigger a hostile response in another stickleback when seen in its own territory; and certain parts of the human face will automatically elicit a smile in very young babies. In each case the individual is preprogrammed to act in specific ways to specific stimuli, the connection having come about because in the course of evolution it helped to facilitate survival and ensure the individual’s well-being. An evolutionary perspective is thus basic to ethological thinking (see evolution).

  ORIGINS

  Ethology as a distinct perspective emerged in the 1930s, largely thanks to the work of two biologists, Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen (for a brief historical account see Smith, 1990). They argued that the behaviour of different species could best be understood in terms of the animal’s adaptation to its natural environment, that each species was thus distinguished by its own behavioural patterns (named by them Fixed Action Patterns), and that a primary task of biologists was to study these as they occur in the animal’s natural habitat. Lorenz in particular was convinced that these patterns really are fixed, that is, that they are wholly innate and not modified by experience and that each is rigidly linked to a particular sign stimulus. He further proposed that this link operates through an innate releasing mechanism (IRM), a hypothetical internal structure which the sign stimulus activates and which in turn triggers the fixed action pattern through a release of energy – a ‘flush toilet’ conception, as it has been called. Generally, Lorenz thus tended to stress the more mechanistic, automatic side of behaviour, as seen in his focus on predetermined stimulus–response connections and genetically rooted timing of developmental events (see critical periods

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  eBook - ePub

  An Introduction to Theories of Human Development

  • Neil J Salkind(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  fixed action pattern . This is by far the most complex of the three as well as the most significant for our understanding of the application of ethological principles to human behavior. A fixed action pattern can be thought of as a genetically programmed sequence of coordinated motor actions. As you might expect, because such sequences are genetically programmed, they do not vary within a species. One example of a fixed action pattern in dogs is their tendency to continue to hunt, if given the opportunity, even if they are not hungry. In relation to human behavior, Fixed Action Patterns can be represented as very complex sequences of actions, such as nurturing a small child’s growth.

  Fixed Action Patterns, whether simple or very complex, form the bases for sets of adaptive coordinated motor actions.

  Fixed Action Patterns are more complex in nature than either reflexes or taxes, and they include additional components. Table 4.1 illustrates the relationship between a resulting fixed action pattern and the other components: the innate releasing mechanism (IRM) and the signed stimulus. In any organism’s environment, a host of stimuli are present. Some of these have direct impacts on the organism’s behaviors, whereas others do not and are generally ignored. For example, you stop your car at a red light, but you probably ignore the colors of the cars that pass by while you wait for the light to change. An infant may ignore the comings and goings of other children in the room yet may become quite agitated when his or her mother leaves, even for a moment.

  TABLE 4.1      The Components of a Fixed Action Pattern and Their Locations

  A stimulus such as a parent’s withdrawal may elicit a response of despair or anxiety in an infant. Stimuli that have such “power” or significance are called signed stimuli , so named because they have valences attached to them that give them a value to the organism that other stimuli do not have. There are also stimuli that have such power as a result of learning rather than as a result of some biological or evolutionary perspective. A signed stimulus in turn activates an innate releasing mechanism that initiates a fixed action pattern. In Table 4.1

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  Handbook of Applied Dog Behavior and Training, Adaptation and Learning

  • Steven R. Lindsay(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  The importance of instinctual mechanisms and species-typical action patterns should not be overlooked in the analysis of behavior and understanding its motivation. Among other things, instincts preserve genetic information about an animal’s biobehavioral past. Nature is conservative and under natural circumstances many biological constraints and pressures are maintained from generation to generation in the interaction between animals and the environment. These constants have resulted in the gradual genetic codification of vital biological information produced by the interaction of an animal species with the surrounding environment over the course of its evolution. Although behavior itself is not directly encoded in an animal’s genome, various genetic instructions are orchestrated by the genome that provide the biological substrate for the expression of species-typical behavior.

  An instinctive mechanism that has drawn a tremendous amount of attention is the fixed action pattern (FAP). Complex and regular patterns of stereotypic behavior, not dependent on learning for their expression, are referred to as Fixed Action Patterns. Although some disagreement exists regarding just how “fixed” such motor patterns are, the concept is a useful one for understanding many more or less unlearned features of dog behavior. Although FAPs are instinctive, instincts are not identical with FAPs. For example, maternal care in dogs is not an FAP, yet certain components of maternal care are innately programmed FAPs. Thus, immediately after birth, the mother removes the allantoic sac and severs the umbilical cord with her carnassial teeth—this behavior is highly stereotypic from puppy to puppy. The puppy is licked dry and the umbilical cord cut shorter if necessary. Such licking and stimulation elicits various muscular reflexes and breathing. Another maternal FAP is the mother’s stimulation of elimination. Newborn puppies are unable to eliminate voluntarily for about the first 2 weeks of life, thus requiring that the mother elicit elimination by licking the anogenital area and ingesting the neonate’s excreta. The exact signs or releasing stimuli controlling these two epimeletic (care-giving) patterns are not known. Likewise, not all of the components involved in the dog’s sexual behavior can be characterized as FAPs, but some sequences are FAPs. For instance, the female’s practice of averting her tail to one side before intromission or the male’s action of clasping and thrusting are FAPs. These actions are stereotypic and hardwired

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  The Rat

  A Study in Behavior

  • S. A. Barnett(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  (iii) The performance of a fixed action pattern thus depends on the internal state of the animal as well as an external stimulus or situation. Often, an internal state induces generalized movements, or appetitive behaviour (§ 2.2); these movements occur in the absence of a specific object, such as food, or of a particular kind of situation such as that provided by a nest; they end when a specific situation is achieved. This is called a consummatory state.

  (iv) The two preceding generalizations do not hold for all stereotyped behaviour. There is no evidence that, in rats, being deprived of the opportunity to fight or to carry out amicable acts leads to an increased readiness to perform these actions, or to an increase in appetitive movements. Fighting occurs only in response to a particular kind of situation, one which is not in any sense ‘sought’: a group of siblings can live together without conflict.

  (v) Fixed Action Patterns are not only themselves standardized: they are usually evoked by standard forms of stimulation, such as an odour, a visual pattern, a sound pattern or (at least in mammals) a combination of stimuli affecting more than one sense. A single odour, visual pattern and so on, having this effect, is a releasing stimulus. But here again there are exceptions: eating, for instance, as we saw in § 3, is in rats by no means dependent on a single stimulus pattern; further, just what stimuli do evoke feeding are determined in part by individual experience. Moreover, the response to a pattern, visual or auditory, is to some extent generalized: the different appearances of an object seen all evoke a response as does a given sound pattern even when presented in many different forms; this is due to learning (§ 7.3.1.3).

  (vi) Non-specific features of the animal’s surroundings may also influence the performance of Fixed Action Patterns. For example, an adult male rat attacks other males only in a familiar area. Here again, learning (of topography) is involved.

  (vii) The fact that behaviour patterns are often so highly standardized has led to the notion that they are ‘innate’; but it is now evident that the term ‘innate’, unless it merely means ‘stereotyped’, is inappropriate. The question to ask is: how does the behaviour develop ? The answer turns out to vary widely, even among the few examples which have been thoroughly studied. This is because there are several classes of agents which influence the development of behaviour; and each can influence different features of behaviour in different ways. The following list is slightly modified from one given by Hebb [136

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