Life as an Animal | Bhoomika Nangia | TEDxMonroeTownshipHighSchool
norms traditions behaviors habits lifestyle as humans we've not only been hearing these words but we've also been actively applying them in our everyday lives however having thought if these words could apply beyond humans naturally your first instinct may be animals can these terms apply to animals can animals have their own set of socially accepted behaviors well scientifically speaking zoologists have not found enough hard experimental data to certainly prove that animals exhibit social learning however based on their observations they do think it is plausible that animals could also have their own unique norms scientifically defined and culturation is the process by which animals perform social learning through behaviors and these behaviors benefit them in one way or another they enhance the quality of life wait a minute enhance the quality of life does this phrase bring a very famous theory in your mind darwin's theory of natural selection which states how organisms adapt to their environment over time and they take on these behaviors because they benefit them in one way or another specifically andrew wooden a psychology professor found this deep connection between natural selection and social learning through his work on chimpanzees he went to tanzania and he observed chimpanzees at two different sites a site known as gombe and a site known as thai just like humans chimpanzees also use tools such as rocks and sticks to complete their everyday tasks however he discovered that the specific ways these chimpanzees use their tools exhibit social learning so when wooden went to tanzania and observed these chimpanzees at gombe he saw that these chimpanzees used a specific type of stick and they inserted it into an ant nest waited until the ants traveled up 50 of the way on the stick took the stick out sweeped off the ants using their hand and gobbled hundreds of ants up at one time however at a different site known as tai vidin observed that these chin ventis did also use a stick and insert it into an ant-ness but they waited merely one to two seconds before taking it out and sweeping the ants up right through their lips and directly consuming them this way of eating only allows them to get about a dozen ants at one time and it's similar to how we we may drink soup with a teaspoon only getting a few drops in our mouth at one time i don't know about you but i don't have that much patience so you may be wondering why don't these chimpanzees at thai follow the method that the chimpanzee said gombe follow because the chimpanzees had gone they can consume hundreds of eggs at one time and the answer is simple because no chimpanzee at thai has ever discovered this method however at gombe a few chimpanzees discovered this method and all the other chimpanzees follow them because it benefited them they were able to eat quickly exhibiting social learning so to consolidate our understanding of how the chimpanzees had tai consumed the ants i'm going to be showing you a short video clip so here you can see the chimpanzee starts this they stick into the ant nest takes it out and sweeps up the hands through his mouth and most of the ants fall down so he'll barely get a few ants in his mouth at a time he does that repeatedly because he only gets a few hands at one time so now that we've discussed about a specific example of social learning you may be wondering how does this happen how do these animals transfer their behaviors from one animal to the next there are three main types of social transmission vertical horizontal and oblique transmission vertical transmission happens directly from parents to offspring so parents who give rise to offspring make that offspring have similar behaviors to them connecting this to humans as we grow up we always observe our parents how they eat how they sleep and maybe subconsciously but we do follow their techniques and their ways of living and this this also happens with animals on the other hand horizontal transmission occurs among a population of animals as these animals are closely related and they observe each other perform everyday tasks they may take on their behaviors and follow them and the last type of social transmission which may be the most confusing one oblique transmission happens from generation after generation one generation of animals pass on their set of social behaviors to another generation now you may be confused what's the difference between vertical and oblique transmission because vertical transmission also happens from parents to children which are generations well this key difference lies in the fact that oblique transmission can happen from a grandparent to a grandchild as well not just a parent to a child so now that we've talked about a specific example of social learning in primates and the the different types of techniques of social transmission you may be wondering what about nonprofits has there been any observation of of social learning among them well scientists helfmen and schultz performed famous translocation experiments with french fronts a type of fish so fish native to one site were transported to a different site and at this different site these french currents followed a very specific migration route so scientists helfmen and schultz wanted to see if these new fish would readily learn this this new migration technique by living among these resident fish and surprisingly that's what they found as soon as these new fish were transported to that site where that migration route was followed they immediately began learning it and following them however scientists healthman trolls were still not satisfied they they weren't sure if these fish followed that migration route because of that specific site or because of that resident fish that lived there and followed that site so before they transferred that fish the new fish into that site they first removed the resident fish from that second side so when these new fish were transferred to the site where this migration was previously followed they found that these new fish did not follow that migration route anymore exhibiting strong a very strong example of social learning because these fish had learned this migration from that resident fish and when the resident fish were removed they had nobody to learn from these and countless other examples of social learning exhibited among animals are making scientists believe that the animals could also have their own unique norms norms traditions values lifestyle these words are readily extending beyond humans as zoologists continue to find new examples of social transmission among animals thank you