Fundamentals of learning

Answer the question, please. 1 page answer per question. No need to include the question in the paper.

1. Vervet monkeys have 3 different sounding calls they emit when they spot a leopard, an eagle, or a snake. Other members of the monkey group then stop and scan the sky or the ground for predators. Cheney and Seyfarth (1990) repeatedly played a recorded “leopard alarm” from a single monkey to the rest of the group of monkeys. What do you think happened to the group’s response, over time? What would happen if at the end of the above experiment, an “eagle alarm” from the same monkey would be played? Why?

2. Mexican wolves are endangered, partially because many are shot by ranchers when the wolves are caught eating their sheep. In an effort to prevent the Mexican wolf from attacking domesticated sheep, and thus prevent wolves from being killed, Drs. Lowell Nicolaus and Dan Moriarty conducted an experiment. They rubbed mutton with thiabendazole, a flavourless anti-worm medication that induces nausea, and wrapped these pieces of meat in sheep skin. These bundles of meat were fed to a captive pack of wolves on 3 separate occasions (these wolves had never encountered sheep). How would this help to reduce interactions between these wolves and sheep when the pack is released into the wild? Why might this technique be more difficult to implement in the wild with wolves that have already eaten sheep on multiple occasions?

Last Updated on February 14, 2019

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