1. Proximate causation refers to the "how," or physiology of behavior, while ultimate causation refers to the "why," or adaptive value of the behavior.
2. The sign stimulus in the egg retrieval behavior of geese is an egg outside of the nest. The innate releasing mechanism is the sensory mechanism that detects the signal, and the fixed action pattern is the act of retrieval itself.
3. Hybrid lovebirds have a nesting behavior intermediate between the two parental species, lending strength to the genetic basis for behavior. This suggests that this particular type of behavior is instinctive.
4. In associative learning, an animal forms an association between two stimuli, whereas in nonassociative learning they do not. Classical conditioning involves forming an association between two stimuli presented simultaneously (such as in Pavlov's dogs); in operant conditioning, the animal learns to associate a behavior with a reward or a punishment.
5. Filial imprinting involves the formation of parent/offspring bonds. Sexual imprinting concerns how early experience affects an animal's ability to identify mates of its own species. A moving box is just as good an imprinting stimulus as a real parent because the first object seen by a young animal is, in fact, its parent.
6. The nature/nurture controversy involved whether behavior was instinctive or learned. Marler's work on bird song development showed that both instinct and learning make important contributions in shaping behavior.
7. The biological clock is seated in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus in the brain. Since it can undergo spontaneous oscillatory changes, it functions as a neural pacemaker. The pineal gland is also affiliated with endogenous rhythms; it secretes melatonin.
8. A social releaser is a signal produced by one individual to communicate with another individual, usually of the same species. A stimulus/response chain is a situation in which the behavior of one individual initiates a behavior in another, which may then initiate a behavior in the first animal again, etc. A pheromone is a signal chemical secreted by an individual to attract another of its species. Pheromones can be very potent in very reduced amounts.
9. Communication signals are species-specific, thus limiting sexual communication to members of one species. Firefly flash patterns, bird song, and some insect sex pheromones are species-specific.
10. A taxis is movement toward or away from a stimulus; kineses are changes in activity levels due to a stimulus. These differ from migration in that migrations are long-range movements. Migration patterns are genetically determined. Patterns do not change, but new information is added to the old. Migrating birds use the sun, the stars, and the detection of the earth's magnetic field to orient themselves on migration.