Animal behaviour includes all the ways animals interact with other organisms and the physical environment. It is defined as a change in the activity of an organism in response to a stimulus.

1. Memory
Dr. Manju Bhaskar
Assistant Professor
Department of Zoology
D. B. S. College (CSJM University)
Kanpur 208006
email: drmanjubhaskar19@gmail.com

2.  Animal behaviour includes all the ways animals interact with
other organisms and the physical environment.
 Behaviour can also be defined as a change in the activity of an
organism in response to a stimulus, an external or internal cue
or combo of cues.
 Some behaviours are innate, or genetically hardwired, while
others are learned, or developed through experience. In many
cases, behaviours have both an innate component and a
learned component.
 Behaviour is shaped by natural selection. Many behaviors
directly increase an organism's fitness, that is, they help it

3. TYPES OF
BEHAVIOUR
 Innate
 Inherited, "instinctive”
 Automatic & consistent.
 Learned
 Ability to learn inherited, but the
behaviour develops during animal
life time.
 Variable and flexible.
 Changes with experience and
environment.

4. Learnin
g
 Learning is animal’s ability to change behaviour based on the past experience.
Leaning is divided into the following types,
1. Non-Associative Learning
2. Associative Learning
 Non-Associative Learning
 It is the animal’s ability to develop behaviour without developing a connection
between the stimuli and response or by forming a connection between the two
stimuli. It is further divided into,
• Habituation
• Imprinting
• Sensitisation

5. Habituati
on
 It is the common form of simple learning. It
may be defined as the decline in response due
to continuous repetition of the stimulus.
Animals learn not to respond to the stimuli
which do not have any significance.
 For example, young birds learn that a
butterfly is something to eat and not to be
afraid of and that hawks prey upon the young
birds. Tinbergen has shown that these young
birds fly off when a hawk silhouette is
displayed overhead. And the silhouettes of
other shapes do not evoke this escape
behaviour.
 The characteristics that are important for the
identification of hawks by the birds are the
shape of the wings, the long tail and short

6. Associative
Learning
 It is the animal’s ability to develop behaviour by
developing a connection between the stimuli and
response or by forming a connection between the two
stimuli. It is further divided into the following types,
 Classical Conditioning: Classical conditioning
is the acquisition of a response to a new stimulus by
association with an old stimulus. It involves coupling
a stimulus with a behaviour or response. The most
famous classical conditioning experiment is that of
Pavlov and his dogs. Pavlov presented food to the
dogs and measured their salivary response. Then, he
began ringing a bell just before presenting food. At
first the dogs did not salivate until food is presented
to them.
 After a while the dogs began to salivate when the
sound of the bell was heard. Sound of bell became
equivalent to presentation of food. Stimulus to which
the animals react without any training are called
unconditional stimulus. Pavlov won the Nobel Prize in
1904 for research in which he measured the saliva
production of dogs in response to a variety of stimuli.
Another useful example of this sort of
learning is seen in cows that let release milk
when they hear calves calling because they
have formed an association between this
sound and subsequent suckling of teats.
Through classical conditioning involuntary
responses are learned.

7. Operant
Conditioning
 This kind of conditioning forms an association between the
behaviour and a consequence. It is also called as instrumental
conditioning or response stimulus conditioning because it forms an
association between animal response and stimulus that follows
consequences. This type of conditioning is extensively studies by
Thorndike.
 He investigated the behaviour of the cat trying to escape from
various homemade puzzle boxes. When first restricted in boxes the
cat took longer time to escape. But with experience ineffective
response occurred less frequently and successful response occurred
quickly enabling the cat to escape in less time. Skinner extended
the theories proposed by Thorndike. Skinner’s box consisted of a
bar on the wall which when pressed released food pellet. Skinner
believed that rewarding the animal when certain appropriate action
is done increases the likelihood of the repetition of that behaviour.
 When rats, placed in a box accidentally tapped on the bar on the
wall, a food pellet was released. Skinner observed that each time
the rat learned to find the pellet in lesser and lesser time. Rat
learned to press the bar and find the food pellet. This type of
training is called operant conditioning. Classical conditioning
illustrates Stimulus Response learning where as operant
conditioning illustrates Response Stimulus learning. Through
operant conditioning voluntary responses are learned.

9. Insight
Learning(Reasoning)
 It is the most advanced form of learning.
 Responses produced by insight are those resulting from a rapid
appreciation of relationships in which animals solve problems too
quickly to have gone through a trial-and error processes.
 The animal seems to arrive at a solution by reasoning.
 Reasoning can be defined as the ability to combine spontaneously two
or more separate /isolated experiences to form a new experiences,
which is effective for obtaning a desired end

10.  Memory, in its broadest sense, refers to an individual's ability to retain
retain learned information.
 The formation of memory is a complex task which all organisms appear
appear to be able to do.
 Fundamentally, such ability requires a series of distinct steps:
• Information must be encoded as meaningful associations are assessed,
assessed,
• The resulting information must be recorded in some form,
• The memory record must be decoded when needed.
Memor
y

11. From physiologic view point memory is divided into the following forms:
Explicit Memory
 It is also called as declarative or recognition memory. It is associated
with consciousness or awareness.
 This type of memory is dependent for its retention on hippocampus and
other parts of medial and temporal brain.
 It is further divided into Episodic and Semantic Memory.
 Episodic memory refers to the ability to recall information about a
specific event occurred at a specific time and location. For example,
something very significant like any life threatening event.
 Semantic memory refers to the ability to recall information independent
of time and place.

12. Implicit Memory
 It is also called as non declarative memory.
 It does not involve awareness.
 This kind of memory can be associative or non associative, skill or habit.
 Skills and habits once acquired become unconscious and automatic.
 Explicit memory and many forms of explicit memory involve the following types of
of memories,
• Short term memory: This memory lasts for several seconds to a minute. Its strength
primarily depends on attention and not on rehearsal. It is highly vulnerable to
disruption when the attention shifts elsewhere. The memory of this kind depends on the
on the neural activity in the regions of frontal and parietal lobes.
• Long term memory: This memory lasts for few hours to months. This memory depends
on the transfer of memory from the short term memory using repeated rehearsal. The
The memory of this kind depends on activity of hippocampus.

16. Referen
ces
 https://slideplayer.com/slide/6078966/
 https://in.pinterest.com/lockchm/human-memory/
 https://in.pinterest.com/pin/189573465550240711/
 Learning and MemoryJohn H. Byrne, Ph.D., Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, McGovern
Medical School
 Rachael C. Shaw and Annette Harvey (2019). Long-term memory for a learned behaviour in a wild bird.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0912