Browsing by Subject "Social learning"
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Item Foraging decisions by eavesdropping bats(2014-05) Jones, Patricia LucileAnimals forage in complex environments in which they must constantly make decisions about which resources to approach and which to avoid. Many factors can influence these foraging decisions including perception and cognition. Predators that locate prey by eavesdropping on prey mating calls face a challenging foraging task because they must be able to identify which species-specific prey signals indicate palatable prey. My thesis investigates such foraging decisions in eavesdropping bats. The Neotropical fringe-lipped bat, Trachops cirrhosus, locates its frog and katydid prey by eavesdropping on the prey's calls. One of the prey of T. cirrhosus in Panamá is the túngara frog, Physalaemus pustulosus, that can make simple calls consisting of a "whine" alone, or complex calls which are a whine followed by 1-7 "chucks". In my first chapter I examine what components of frog calls bats use to identify and localize them. I assess how bats respond to the two components of the complex calls of P. pustulosus, and report that, unlike female frogs, bats respond to the chuck component alone but preferentially approach the whine. Next, I examine how response to prey cues is affected by prey availability by assessing the response of T. cirrhosus to geographically and seasonally variable prey. I find population and seasonal differences in response to some prey cues but not to other cues. Trachops cirrhosus can also learn novel prey cues from exposure to a conspecific tutor (social learning). My third chapter examines the conditions that influence when bats socially learn novel prey cues. I discover that bats are more likely to use social information to learn novel prey cues when the cue they are currently using to find food is unreliable. In my fourth and final chapter I address how eavesdropping can contribute to the evolution and diversification of bats by investigating the potential of eavesdropping on katydid calls for niche partitioning in two closely related bat species, the European greater and lesser mouse-eared bats, Myotis myotis and Myotis blythii oxygnathus. Together these studies highlight the role of cognition in foraging decisions and consider the consequences of eavesdropping for niche partitioning.Item Imitation of words and actions across cultures(2015-08) Klinger, Jörn; Bannard, Colin; Beaver, David; Echols, Catharine; Legare, Cristine; Quinto-Pozos, David; Woodbury, AnthonyHumans imitate in a unique way. They imitate selectively, that is, they imitate intentional actions at a higher rate than accidental ones. At the same time humans tend to faithfully imitate actions that do not seem to be relevant to an end goal. Selectively imitating intentional actions allows us to learn efficiently from others, while faithful imitation makes it possible to acquire complex cultural conventions without immediately understanding the contribution of each of its components. Recent studies suggest that this unique way of imitating is universal across cultures and enables humans to develop complex cultural practices that set them apart from other species. The evidence so far, however, is almost exclusively based on studies about the imitation of actions, while little work has been done on the imitation of language. Language is arguably humanity's most important cultural product and unlike instrumental actions that are restricted by the laws of physics, language is a fairly arbitrary system of conventions and thus more prone to cross-cultural variance. Claims about the cultural universality in imitation learning thus need to be supported by data from verbal imitation. The present work addresses this point in four studies. The first three studies tested children's imitation of adjectives in different contexts across three different cultures: a small indigenous community in Mexico and two western large-scale societies. In various verbal imitation tasks we found cross-cultural differences. We propose that these differences are due to differences in the amount of time spent in dyadic caregiver-child interaction in indigenous and western culture. Further, the data suggest that this cultural variation arises from the fact that humans across cultures in both verbal and instrumental tasks imitate selectively when the function of an element is transparent to them. When its function is opaque they do the safe thing: faithfully imitate. This account is tested in study four. In an instrumental task adults and children imitated faithfully when the function of the actions performed was opaque, but not when they were transparent. This allows us to propose that the cross-cultural differences we observe are thus due to differences in experience that make different aspects of language use more or less transparent to learners.Item Middle-school children's perceptions and motivation regarding work and their future : simple or complex? optimistic or realistic?(2001-08) Ripke, Marika N., 1972-; Huston, Aletha C.The primary purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of middle-school children’s perceptions and motivation regarding their future. The results suggest that children think rather extensively about their future at this age, and in more complex ways than previously theorized. Children in this study were able to clearly articulate their goals for the future. The importance of a good job and financial security was a common theme in their responses. The majority of children did not believe they could attain any job they wanted in America, but instead understood there to be limits to what they could achieve, attributing these limits primarily to stable and uncontrollable characteristics. Children had a basic understanding of the duties and requirements for their desired jobs, and most felt they were currently preparing for these jobs. Children’s perceptions of limits and opportunity in America, and the extent of their knowledge and preparation for their desired job, predicted their confidence in attaining their occupational goals. Differences by gender and ethnic group were revealed, though the influence of ethnic group was less prominent than expected.Item The social transmission of associative fear in rats : mechanisms and applications of fear conditioning by proxy(2015-08) Jones, Carolyn Eagan; Monfils, Marie-H.; Lee, Hongjoo J; Schallert, Timothy; Gore, Andrea C; Neal-Beevers, A. RebeccaPairing a neutral cue (e.g., a tone) with an inherently aversive unconditioned stimulus (US; e.g., a foot-shock) leads to future presentations of the now conditioned stimulus (CS) alone eliciting a conditioned response (e.g., freezing). This direct associative learning is only one technique under which individuals can learn about potential threats, but its convenient design and the robust production of responses makes direct fear conditioning the most frequently used paradigm in the research of fear and anxiety disorders. Fear can also be acquired from a social context, such as through observing the fear expression of a conspecific (Mineka et al., 1984, Mineka and Cook, 1993, Olsson et al., 2007, Olsson and Phelps, 2007). Utilizing a modified demonstrator-observer paradigm (fear conditioning by proxy) that allows for free interaction between subjects (see Bruchey et al., 2010; Jones et al., 2014), I explore the ability of rats to learn an associative fear response vicariously. In the experiments presented here, I (i) investigate the subject traits that bias rats to engage a social learning strategy; (ii) examine the neural mechanisms involved in this form of observational learning; and (iii) demonstrate how this paradigm can be incorporated into translationally-relevant tests of long term behavioral deficits resulting from early life trauma, in line with the health goals of the fear learning field in general (e.g., fear reduction). My results indicate that the identity of demonstrator animals as well as prior experience of the observer contributes to the expression of fear acquired vicariously. Additionally, I show that the social behaviors of caged rats are indicators of a social dominance hierarchy and are predictors of the potency of social fear transmission. This method of fear learning conserves some of the pathways necessary for direct fear learning (e.g., lateral amygdala) but is unique in that it requires regions necessary for executive control (e.g., anterior cingulate cortex) making the fear conditioning by proxy paradigm a novel tool for evaluating learning and behavior in the laboratory setting.Item A teaching sampler : the educational approaches of the Tall Pines Quilt Guild(2012-05) Barry, Elizabeth Ann; Mayer, Melinda M.; Bain, ChristinaThis case study used ethnographic data collection tools to focus on the educational models and approaches used by the Tall Pines Quilt Guild (TPQG) in Huntsville, Texas. In this study I strove to explore the transfer of quiltmaking knowledge in a community-based art education organization, a quilt guild, and how those educational methods and models could be adapted to the museum setting. I became a member of the Guild and took on the research role of a participant observer to witness how the TPQG perpetuates the quilting craft for its members. Through observing various Guild events, such as monthly meetings, workshops, and bees I found the members frequently participated in cooperative and collaborative social learning. The rationale for undertaking this study was that there are many publications on how to make quilts, the history of quilt patterns, indexes of quilt patterns, quiltmakers' stories, quilt research, and quilt exhibition catalogues. However, proper documentation of the educational approaches used by women in quilt guilds has not been researched. Quilt guilds provide an environment where adults can learn and expand their knowledge about the quilting craft in the form of lifelong learning. By looking into how the Tall Pines Quilt Guild acts a community-based art education organization, the identified educational models used by quilt guilds could be employed at museums displaying quilt exhibits with potential program models and characteristics to inform the public about quilts, quiltmaking, and quilters.