Stimulus and Response

A stimulus is any phenomenon that directly influences the activity or growth

of a living organism. Phenomenon, meaning any observable fact or event, is
a broad term and appropriately so, since stimuli can be of so many varieties.
Chemicals, heat, light, pressure, and gravity all can serve as stimuli, as
indeed can any environmental change. Nor are environmental changes
limited to the organism's external environment. In some cases its internal
environment can act as a stimulus, as when an animal reaches the age of
courtship and mating and responds automatically to changes in its body.

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All creatures, even humans, are capable of automatic responses to stimuli.

When a person inhales dust, pepper, or something to which he or she is
allergic, a sneeze follows. The person may suppress the sneeze (which is not
a good practice, since it puts a strain on blood vessels in the head), but this
does not stop the body from responding automatically to the irritating
stimulus by initiating a sneeze. Similarly, plants respond automatically to
light and other stimuli in a range of behaviors known collectively as tropisms,
which we explore later in this essay.

INNATE AND LEARNED BEHAVIOR.

Not all responses to stimuli are automatic, however. Certainly not all
behavior on the part of higher animals is automatic, though, as we have
noted, even humans are capable of some automatic responses. In general,
behavior can be categorized as either innate (inborn) or learned, but the
distinction is frequently unclear. In many cases it is safe to say that behavior
present at birth is innate, but this does not mean that behavior that
manifests later in life is learned. (Later in this essay we look at an example of
this behavior as it relates to chickens and pecking.)

Behavior is considered innate when it is present and complete without any

experience whereby it was learned. At the age of about four weeks, human
babies, even blind ones, smile spontaneously at a pleasing stimulus. Like all
innate behavior, babies' smiling is stereotyped, or always the same, and
therefore quite predictable. Plants, protista (single-cell organisms), and
animals that lack a well-developed nervous system rely on innate behavior.
Higher animals, on the other hand, use both innate and learned behavior. A
fish is born knowing how to swim, whereas a human or a giraffe must learn
how to walk.

Ethology

Ethology is the study of animal behavior, including its mechanisms and

evolution. The science dates back to the British naturalist Charles Darwin
(1809-1882), who applied it in his research concerning evolution by means of
natural selection (see Evolution). Darwin presented many examples to
illustrate the fact that, in addition to other characteristics of an organism,
such as its morphologic features or shape, behavior is an adaptation to
environmental demands and can increase the chances of species survival.

The true foundations of ethology, however, lie in the work of two men during
the period between 1930 and 1950: the Austrian zoologist Konrad Lorenz
(1903-1989) and the Dutch ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907-1988).
Together with the Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch (1886-1982), most noted
for his study of bee communication and sensory perception, the two men
shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

Lorenz and Tinbergen, who together are credited as founders of scientific

ethology, contributed individually to the discipline and, during the mid-
twentieth century, worked together on a theory that animals develop
formalized, rigid sequences of action in response to specific stimuli.
According to Lorenz and Tinbergen, animals show fixed-action patterns
(FAPs) of behavior which are strong responses to particular stimuli. Later in
this essay, we look at examples of FAPs in action. In addition, Lorenz put
forward the highly influential theory of imprinting, discussed briefly in this
essay and in more detail elsewhere (see Instinct and Learning).

Behaviorism and Conditioning

The development of ethology by Lorenz and Tin-bergen occurred against the

backdrop of the rise of the behaviorist school in the realms of philosophy,
psychology, and the biological sciences. This school of thought had its roots
in the late nineteenth century, with the writings of a number of philosophers
and psychologists as well as practical scientists, such as the Russian
physiolo-gist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936). Pavlov showed that an animal can be
trained to respond to a particular stimulus even when that stimulus is
removed, so long as the stimulus has been associated with a secondary one.

Pavlov began his now famous set of experiments by placing powdered meat
in a dog's mouth and observing that saliva flowed into the mouth as a reflex
reaction to the introduction of the meat. He then began ringing a bell before
he gave the dog its food. After doing this several times, he discovered that
the dog salivated merely at the sound of the bell. Many experiments of this
type demonstrated that an innate behavior can be modified, and thus was
born the scientific concept of conditioning, or learning by association with
particular stimuli.

The variety of conditioning applied by Pavlov, known as classical

conditioning, calls for pairing a stimulus that elicits a specific response with
one that does not, until the second stimulus elicits a response like the first.
Classical conditioning is contrasted with operant conditioning, which involves
administering or withholding reinforcements (that is, rewards) based on the
performance of a targeted response.
OPERANT CONDITIONING.

During operant conditioning, a random behavior is rewarded and

subsequently retained by an animal. According to operant conditioning
theory, if we want to train a dog to sit on command, all we have to do is wait
until the dog sits and then say, "Sit," and give the dog a biscuit. After a few
repetitions, the dog will sit on command because the reward apparently
reinforces the behavior and fosters its repetition.

Human parents apply operant conditioning when they admonish their

offspring with such phrases as "You can't watch TV until you've cleaned your
room." Likewise, young chimpanzees learn through a form of operant
conditioning. By observing their parents, young chimps learn how to strip a
twig and then use it to pick up termites (a tasty treat to a chimpanzee) from
rotten logs. Their behavior thus is rewarded, an example of the way that
operant conditioning enables animals to add new, noninherited forms of
behavior to their range of skills.

Though the theory of operant conditioning goes back to the work of the
American psychologist Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949), by far its most
famous proponent was another American psychologist, B. F. Skinner (1904-
1990). In applying operant conditioning to human beings, Skinner and his
followers took the theory to extremes, maintaining that humans have no
ideas of their own, only conditioned responses to stimuli. Love, courage,
faith, and all the other emotions and attitudes that people hold in high
esteem are, according to this school of thought, simply a matter of learned
responses, rather like a parrot making human-like sounds to earn treats. This
extreme form of behaviorism is no longer held in high regard within the
scientific or medical communities.
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