Question

Identify the animal behaviour.
Geese recognize a ringing bell as mother if exposed to it during a critical period shortly after hatching.
A. Reasoning/insight
B. Imprinting
C. Classical conditioning
D. Habituation
E. Instinct

Answer 1

Hint: Animals just like humans show different behaviors. Learned behavior is one that an organism acquires as a result of experience or practice. They contrast with innate behaviors, that are genetically acquired and are operated without any prior experience. Some behaviors have both acquired (learned) and innate elements in them.

Complete answer:
Now, let’s have a look at the above options one by one.
Let an organism adopt the characters if they are exposed or trained.

> Option D: Habituation-It is the simplest form of learning in which an animal stops responding to a stimulus after a period of repeated exposure. This is a form of non-associative learning (no punishment or reward involved).

> Option B: Imprinting- It is a highly specific type of learning that occurs in the life of an organism during the development of certain animals, such as ducks and geese. So, the above example is of Imprinting where geese recognize a ringing bell as a mother if exposed to it during a critical period after hatching. The geese follow the footsteps of the mother.

> Option C: Classical conditioning- A response already associated with one stimulus is added with another stimulus without prior connection. The most famous example is Ivan Pavlov’s experiments in which dogs were conditioned to drool, upon hearing the sound of a bell—a response previously associated with food.

> Option A: Reasoning- Some animals, chimpanzees, are capable of problem-solving skills.

> Option E: Instinct- It is referred to as the innate behavior which is already present in the animal and the animal performs things accordingly.

Hence, the correct answer is option (B).

Note: Reasoning can be developed in an animal through problem-solving skills. This is the most useful and most creative behavior of animals. Successful trials have been done with Chimpanzee and a spatial learning test was run in Rats in which they ran through a maze in order to find food.