Foraging-and feeding-related behaviors across eumetazoans share similar molecular mechanisms, suggesting the early evolution of an optimal foraging behavior called area-restricted search (ARS), involving mechanisms of dopamine and glutamate in the modulation of behavioral focus. Similar mechanisms in the vertebrate basal ganglia control motor…

Rats cached pieces of cheese on four different arms of an eight-arm radial maze. On a retrieval test given 45min later, rats learned to return to arms where food was cached before arms where food had not been cached. Tests were then performed in which cache sites on one side of the maze were always modified (pilfered or degraded), but cache sites…

Humans find some sounds more pleasing than others; such preferences may underlie our enjoyment of music. To gain insight into the evolutionary origins of these preferences, we explored whether they are present in other animals. We designed a novel method to measure the spontaneous sound preferences of cotton-top tamarins, a species that has been…

Described is a course on animal behavior offered for high school students grade 10-12. The course has a biology prerequisite and includes units on behavior patterns, communication, courtship patterns, territories, and social groups. (SL)

Describes how to measure the daily rhythm of activity (photoperiodism) of small mammals. Three methods for recording information are reviewed including instructions for making a recorder. Includes suggestions for activities and experiments. (PR)

A program at Moorpark Community College, in Moorpark, California, offers a two-and-a-half-year major in Exotic Animal Training and Management. Emphasis is on the practical, everyday handling and training of wild animals. (LBH)

This paper reports on the findings of a case study that investigated the interaction of the agendas and practices of students, teachers, and zoo educators during a class field trip to a zoo. The study reports on findings of the analysis of two case classes of students and their perceptions of their learning experiences during the field trip. The…

Several types of contrast effects have been identified including incentive contrast, anticipatory contrast, and behavioral contrast. Clement, Feltus, Kaiser, and Zentall (2000) proposed a type of contrast that appears to be different from these others and called it within-trial contrast. In this form of contrast the relative value of a reinforcer…

Every year, the Parent-Teacher Organization of Hiller Elementary School gives every teacher a fifty dollar bill to help offset classroom expenses. This year the author, a second grade teacher, knew exactly how he would spend the money. He bought thirty-eight perfect, clear, two-quart plastic, lidded containers for each of his students and three…

When a dog (in this case, Tim Pennings' dog Elvis) is in the water and a ball is thrown downshore, it must choose to swim directly to the ball or first swim to shore. The mathematical analysis of this problem leads to the computation of bifurcation points at which the optimal strategy changes.

The role of the primary motor cortex in the acquisition of new motor skills was evaluated during classical conditioning of vibrissal protraction responses in behaving mice, using a trace paradigm. Conditioned stimulus (CS) presentation elicited a characteristic field potential in the vibrissal motor cortex, which was dependent on the synchronized…

Using manual responses, human participants are remarkably fast and accurate at deciding if a natural scene contains an animal, but recent data show that they are even faster to indicate with saccadic eye movements which of 2 scenes contains an animal. How could it be that 2 images can apparently be processed faster than a single image? To better…

Recently, marine ecologists and economists have made the world aware of some alarming news about the ocean's bounty. According to researchers, populations of edible sea life are falling worldwide, and if the pattern were to continue, we would have no ocean fish left to harvest by midcentury. However, critics believe that this projection relies on…

The present study investigated whether Pavlovian conditioning contributes, in the form of the response operandum serving as a conditioned stimulus, to the increase in the rate of response for 1% liquid-sucrose reinforcement when food-pellet reinforcement is upcoming. Rats were exposed to conditions in which sign tracking for 1% sucrose was…

The concept of plasticity describes the mechanisms that rearrange cerebral organization following a brain injury. During the last century, plasticity has been mainly investigated in humans with acute strokes. It was then shown: (i) that the brain is organized into highly specialized functional areas, often designated "eloquent" areas and (ii) that…