project 2

For the subject matter of this paper i picked animal psychology, the three papers that i read are: How animal psychology contributes to animal welfare by Shigeru Watanabe, The role of animal psychology in evolutionary biology by Peter Hammerstein, and Evidence for a Hierarchical Structure Underlying Avoidance Behavior by Mieke Declercq and Jan De Houwer.

the first one by Shigeru Watanabe is about animal psychology and its uses in animal welfare. it explores the idea that animal welfare is by extension human welfare in dealing with human embryos, for instance, and animals. like humans psychological well-being in necessary for animal welfare.
animal psychology is based on darwin's theory of evolution, from animal psychology is a subject known as anthropomorphism,a linear grouping of mental thinking. first all animals have "simple idea," higher thinking animals have the associational "complex idea," and only humans have "notional idea". however all these are observances, because we cannot know the minds of others, the basis of the observations is made when we witness behavior they express. this is called expression psychology. an example would be of a horse called hanz who could count, it was found through experimentation that he was not actually counting but relying upon the expression of the audience for when to stop counting.

the second article by peter hammerstien is about how closely linked animal psychology and evolutionary psychology is. an understanding of animal behavior is needed to understand why animals react they way they do in any given environment, from house cats to wild cats. animal psychology helps us as in humans, figure out what an animal will most likely act.
animal psychology seems to adapt itself to protect the animal from their own errors, such as how ants have a powerful navigational system. we cannot understand why an animal behaves the way it does unless if we understand its information procession. evolutionary biologists realized when reviewing the theories of animal psychology that simply explaining why an animal behaves the way it does not explain how it evolved. animal psychology gives explanation to why male lions exact infanticide in their own prides.

the third article by Mieke Declercq and Jan De Houwer is about avoidance behavioral learning. in witch in order to avoid a negative outcome the subject performs an action. such as receiving an electric shock. this is called negative reinforcement, the opposite is positive reinforcement in witch a subject performs an action for a reward. in particular this paper is about hierarchical arrangement of behavior depending on the stimulus.
for animals who have a complex thought process, they can be taught using avoidance learning. the writers of this article found that animals have a hierarchical avoidance lea ring structure, they would give that subject choices between positive reinforce rs and found consistently that the subject would respond to the prefer ed stimulus more than the undervalued stimulus.


WORKS CITED

Watanabe, Shigeru, "How animal psychology contributes to animal welfare" http://library.umd.umich.edu/


Mieke Declercq and Jan De Houwer, "Evidence for a Hierarchical Structure Underlying Avoidance Behavior"http://library.umd.umich.edu/

hammerstien, peter, "the role of animal psychology in evolutionary biology"http://library.umd.umich.edu/