One of the oldest topics in behavioral research is: how much of animal behavior is innate and how much is acquired? Mammals are good at learning, while insects and birds have rich instinctive behaviors, so the research on instinctive behaviors is often based on insects and birds. American scholar W Craig has made a long-term study of pigeons. In 19 18, he pointed out that instinctive behavior is not just a series of rigid reflex actions; At first, driven by desire, animals showed fidgety and four-way search. At this time, many actions have been learned, and instinctive behavior only enters the completion stage when it finds the right stimulus (such as food), resulting in rigid reflex actions. After that, there may be a period of time when animals are disgusted with primitive stimuli and eventually enter a state of ease and no desire. At the same time, O. Heinroth, a German scholar, made a systematic study of ducks and geese while working in the zoo. He emphasized the search for homologous behavior, just like studying homologous structure in comparative anatomy, so as to clarify the evolutionary path of behavior. Another German scholar, J.von Huxler, pointed out: In the surrounding environment that animals feel, only some key stimuli really work. It is these stimuli that trigger the internal mechanism of animals' "release" instinctive reactions. These insights had a great influence on early behavioral researchers. Dutch scholars N. Timbergen and K. Z. Lorenz are considered as the founders of modern behavioral biology. His early research focused on finding the key stimuli to induce instinctive behavior, including the hunting and anti-nesting behavior of leptospira, the begging behavior of chicks to their mothers, and the reproductive behavior of three-spined fish. The reproductive behaviors of the three species of stickleback fish include a series of interrelated behaviors, such as occupying territory, courtship, mating, spawning and spawning. On this basis, he further popularized K.Z. Lorenz's theory: the completion of one instinctive action promotes the occurrence of the next instinctive action, thus forming a behavior chain. He was transferred to work in England. Since 1950s, he began to make a systematic comparative study of seagulls, trying to deduce the evolutionary route of seagulls' signal behavior.

The research interest of Austrian scholar K.von frisch always revolves around the direction of how animals get and exchange information. In his early years, he established the conditioned reflex of food, color and sound on fish, thus confirming that fish has color vision and sound vision. Later, he also confirmed that bees have color vision. In the mid-20th century, he discovered bees going out for food, and told the direction and distance of honey source in the nest with the help of dance movements.

Since 1950s, behavioral biology and comparative psychology have gradually approached, and both sides learn from each other. Represented by the school headed by N. Timbergen, which appeared in Britain in 1950s, many scholars pay equal attention to laboratory work and field work. Macroscopically, people are working in the polar regions from deserts in Africa and jungles in South America. The methods used by behaviorists include in-situ observation of wild animals, shooting, "tag hunting", air and water, radio tracking and so on. Microscopically, a series of studies on the learning behavior of sea rabbits by E.R. Kendall and others in the 1980s have gone deep into the cellular and molecular level. Therefore, K.von frisch, K. Z. Lorenz and N. Timbergen won the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology, which not only recognized their outstanding contributions, but also marked that behavioral biology entered a new development period in the field of biological research.

Communication between fixed action patterns and animals.

The study of fixed action patterns is an important step in behavior research, which is attributed to Konrad Lorenz and his mentor Oscar Hynlos. This study was completed by Heinlos and Lorenz, and then published by Lorenz.

In Lorenz's description, the fixed behavior pattern is explained by the instinctive response generated by recognizable stimuli (called signal stimuli or release stimuli). These fixed behavior patterns can be compared between different species, and the similarity and difference of behavior can be easily compared with the similarity and difference of typology.

Hynlos used this method in the most important and frequently cited research on ducklings (including ducks, geese and geese). Animal behaviorists believe that receiving stimuli and producing fixed behavior patterns are the same characteristics in behavior or external performance of an animal and its members, and a few fixed behavior patterns can play an important role in animal communication behavior.

The most complicated investigation is the communication between bees called dance language, which was conducted by Karl von Foley.

Lorenz developed a theory of the evolution of animal communication patterns according to the fixed behavior patterns in nature and the situations in which animals emit these behaviors.

Group Behavior and Contemporary Development

Group behavior can also be called social behavior in Chinese. 1970, the British animal behaviorist John H. Crook published an important paper. He distinguished comparative behavior from group behavior, and thought that it should be regarded as comparative behavior to study animals as individuals in behavioral research at that time. In the future, animal behaviorists should pay more attention to group behavior and its group structure.

Edward Wilson published Sociobiology: A New Synthesis, 1975. Since then, behavioral research has paid more attention to group views. This is also influenced by the Darwinism of Edward Wilson and Richard Dawkins.

The development of behavioral ecology also participated in the change of behavior. In addition, animal behavior is also combined with comparative psychology, which makes modern behavior research integrate animal cognition, comparative psychology, animal behavior, social biology and behavioral ecology.

The difference between comparative psychology and behaviorism

Comparative psychology also discusses animal behavior, but compared with animal behavior, comparative psychology belongs to psychology, not biology. Therefore, comparative psychology studies behavior from the perspective of human psychology; Animal behavior studies behavior from the perspective of animal anatomy and physiology. Early comparative psychology focused on the behavior in the artificial environment and the study of learning behavior; On the other hand, early ethology focused on the natural environment, and usually used instinct to describe animal behavior. The two disciplines are more complementary than competitive, but they have different views on some research issues and sometimes conflict.

In the 20th century, the study of comparative psychology developed greatly in North America, while the study of animal behavior prevailed in Europe, and the two disciplines also derived different philosophical foundations. In fact, the difference is that in the early comparative psychology research, knowledge was widely extended from the behavior of a few species; Animal behaviorists look for laws from the behaviors of many different species, and animal behaviorism uses more comparison methods than comparative psychology.

In North America, most animal behaviorists belong to the psychology department of universities.

Equipment needed for animal behavior research

The most representative animal behavior experimental station in China is ZH-SBS, which is produced by Huaibei Huazheng Biological Instrument Equipment Co., Ltd., and has four experimental modules: learning and memory, anxiety, neuropsychiatry and medicine.

Addicts, domestic medical schools, pharmaceutical factories and research institutes all use this system in newly-built behavioral laboratories.

ZH-SBS animal behavior experimental station is a software and hardware system that collects video, photoelectric and bioelectrical signals of animal behavior, combines computer image processing, lattice analysis and bioelectrical signal analysis technology, extracts animal behavior trajectory, and calculates various behavior indicators accordingly.

ZH-SBS animal behavior experimental station is a comprehensive analysis system, including several subsystems, each subsystem corresponds to an animal behavior analysis model, and each analysis model is applied to a specific experiment or research. The software system is divided into 2 1 module, Morris water maze, MWM), eight-avoidance maze system [radial maze, Barnes maze, Y-maze system, T-maze, dark-avoidance video tracking system, platform jumping video tracking system, skinner box, shuttle box system, opening system (open field test), spontaneous activity video tracking system, hole board system, elevated plus maze. Forced Swinming video tracking system, anxiety monitoring system (Vogel test system), black-and-white box experimental system, Social behavior experiment system Leamed helplessness system, fright response system, scene fear experiment system (FCS), CPP preference box video tracking system (conditional position preference experiment), CPA conditional position aversion system, animal experiment treadmill (flat treadmill), passive wheel recording system, autonomous wheel recording system, rotor meter system, fatigue system of rats and mice, sleep deprivation system, pole climbing recording system, grip strength tester of rats and mice, Small animal bone strength tester, bipedal balance tester, gait behavior testing system, automatic pain analysis system, electronic tenderness tester, cold and hot plate tester, toe volume tester, rat tail light pain tester, thermal tingling tester.

* * * 2 1. Each subsystem can be used independently for a specific experiment or research, and can also be integrated to form a comprehensive ZH-SBS animal behavior experimental station to analyze and study various animal behaviors.

The system includes two parts: observation device and analysis software. Among them, the observation device is responsible for collecting animal behavior signals, mainly using advanced video acquisition technology and LED array technology; The analysis software carries out real-time/off-line analysis on the collected behavior signals, extracts the behavior tracks and characteristics of animals, and calculates some behavior parameters on this basis. The software also provides functions such as database and various data interfaces.

& ampOslash product composition: software+components+image acquisition system+soundproof box (optional)

Features of & ampOslash products: Software video tracking, offline analysis, wireless remote control software intelligent identification of starting and ending experiments, and a set of software with different hardware can do different experiments, saving money and space.

Basic software package

You can choose any one of conditional position preference experiment, black-and-white box experiment, open field experiment, suspended tail experiment, forced Swinming experiment, MORRIS water maze, Y maze (without electricity), elevated cross maze, T maze and eight-arm cross maze. Other modules can be easily added to the basic software package. All the result data are output in excel format and can be counted by SPSS.