Essential Biology E3: Innate and Learned Behaviour

TOK:

To what extent is human behaviour innate in nature?

Watch this video from the California Academy of Sciences’ Science in Action series: Facial Expressions

• What is the effect of the observer on human behaviour when they know they are being observed?
• Why do the blind olympians provide a good sample population for the study?
• What conclusions could be drawn from the investigation? Why?

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Taxis and Kinesis:

• Pill bug lab simulation, from wku.edu
• Pill bug behaviour labs (virtual) from the Monterey Institute
• Sea urchin perception – interesting – from Ed Yong

Learning Animations and Tutorials:

• Pavlov’s dog animation, from Nobel.org

Jim pranks Dwight on The Office:

http://vimeo.com/5371237

Operant Conditioning: nice examples from the Big Bang Theory

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Indiana Univerity Song Learning in Cowbirds: Social effect on birdsong:

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TED Talk: Training Rats to Sniff out Landmines!:

Cuckoos take advantage of reed warblers’ innate caring for chicks – to offload childcare!

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TED Talk: I am my Connectome. How do we learn? How does that mould who were are? What is going on inside that brain of ours? Find out:

Here’s a nice TED Talk on how games reward the brain. Think about how your game-playing (or other immersive pastimes) motivate you through rewards and reinforcement.

Which is more intelligent – a dog or a baby?