Animals learn to ignore certain stimuli because repeated exposure to the stimulus results in neither reward nor punishment
Birds learn to ignore scarecrows
Important in screening out many non-dangerous stimuli such as the sound of wind and rain
Allows humans living near rail or road links to sleep without constant awakening in response to noise stimuli.
Young animals imprint on another organism - usually the parent
Goslings were shown to follow the first moving thing they see on hatching --> they follow and learn from objects that look like the first object
Imprinting occurs in a sensitive period (receptive period)
Is all to do with association but Pavlovs dog is the best example to try and explain.
Dogs salivate when they see or smell food; it is a reflex action and is a response to an unconditional stimulus
He rang a bell when he gave dogs food and they soon began to salivate when they heard the bell - this is a conditioned stimulus leaving to a conditioned response
Animals can learn to relate a pair of events and respond to the first in anticipation
Here's a game (not an overly interesting one) to try and explain it better
This is also another example of learned association. This example is Skinner's box:
Animals in a box would accidentally press the lever and be rewarded with food, this reward led to increasing frequency of pressing the lever because the animals had learned to associate the operation with the reward of food (trial and error)
Latent (exploratory) learning
Animals will explore new surroundings and retain information that is not of immediate use but may be essential to staying alive at some future time
Example: Young rabbits explore the surroundings of their burrows so that they know its layout when a predator is near.
This is based on the ability to think and reason in order to solve problems or deal with a situation that does not require simple fixed, reflex response or the need for repeated trial and error.
Once solved, the solution to the problem is remembered
