A.4: AHL - Innate and learned beahviour

Essential idea: Behavioural patterns can be inherited or learned.

Nature of science: 

Looking for patterns, trends and discrepancies—laboratory experiments and field investigations helped in the understanding of different types of behaviour and learning. (3.1)

Understandings:

• Innate behaviour is inherited from parents and so develops independently of the environment.

• Autonomic and involuntary responses are referred to as reflexes.

• Reflex arcs comprise the neurons that mediate reflexes.

• Reflex conditioning involves forming new associations.

• Learned behaviour develops as a result of experience.

• Imprinting is learning occurring at a particular life stage and is independent of the consequences of behaviour.

• Operant conditioning is a form of learning that consists of trial and error experiences.

• Learning is the acquisition of skill or knowledge.

• Memory is the process of encoding, storing and accessing information.

Applications and skills:

• Application: Withdrawal reflex of the hand from a painful stimulus.

• Application: Pavlov’s experiments into reflex conditioning in dogs.

• Application: The role of inheritance and learning in the development of birdsong.

• Skill: Analysis of data from invertebrate behaviour experiments in terms of the effect on chances of survival and reproduction.

• Skill: Drawing and labelling a diagram of a reflex arc for a pain withdrawal reflex.

Guidance:

• Drawing of reflex arc should include the receptor cell, sensory neuron, relay neuron, motor neuron and effector.