Question 1

What does happen "when you put a chicken back into an egg?" as did Bekoff and Kauer (1984)?

Accepted Answer

A)   Chicks of all ages produced the normal movements associated with hatching.
B)   None of the chicks produced the normal movements associated with hatching.
C)   The older chicks died.
D)   The younger chicks died. A

Question 2

When young male white-crowned sparrows were tutored with tape recordings of songs of both song sparrows and white-crowned sparrows, they

Accepted Answer

A)   acquired no song at all.
B)   copied only the songs of song sparrows.
C)   copied only the songs of their own species.
D)   learned all the songs equally well. C

Question 3

When house mouse adult females are compared with one another on the basis of their fetal intrauterine positions, adult 2M females (female fetuses who had been nestled between two male fetuses), when compared with 0M females (female fetuses who had not been next to a male),

Accepted Answer

A)   are less aggressive to female intruders.
B)   are more attractive to males.
C)   experience their first estrus at a later age.
D)   mark a novel environment at a lower rate. C

Question 4

Research suggests that song development in sparrows consists of two phases: a sensory phase and a sensorimotor phase. During the sensorimotor phase, a male bird

Accepted Answer

A)   does not yet rehearse songs he has heard.
B)   learns songs and stores them in memory.
C)   produces only subsong.
D)   rehearses a song and matches it to sounds he memorized earlier.

Question 5

Which of the following pairings accurately reflects the behavioral and neural embryonic development of the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)?

Accepted Answer

A)   coordinated movement of fins and jaw; development of sensory system of trunk
B)   first undulating movements associated with swimming; development of sensory system of trunk
C)   initial movements in heart and dorsal muscles; prior to nervous system formation
D)   moves in response to tactile stimulation; prior to nervous system formation

Question 6

The songs of male cowbirds reared in isolation from male conspecifics are substantially more appealing to female cowbirds than are the songs of males reared in groups. Additional observation revealed that when they were individually introduced into an aviary with an established colony of cowbirds,

Accepted Answer

A)   group reared males had a more rapid rate of song development than isolates.
B)   group reared males were attacked and sometimes killed by resident dominant males.
C)   isolate males kept a low profile in their new environment and, thus, came into contact with females more frequently.
D)   isolate males repeatedly sang high-potency songs in the presence of dominant males.

Question 7

The disappearance of crawling behavior in the tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) is the result of

Accepted Answer

A)   a sharp reduction in ecdysteroid hormones in the adult stage.
B)   degeneration of the proleg leg muscles just before the pupal stage.
C)   replacement of existing neurons by new neurons that support a more sophisticated style of locomotion in the pupal stage.
D)   the innervation of proleg retractor muscles in the larva.

Question 8

Deposition of increasing levels of yolk androgens may be a way for mothers to adjust the developmental trajectories of their offspring to current environmental conditions. In black-headed gulls, for example, this might

Accepted Answer

A)   occur because chicks hatch in synchrony, and are thus highly competitive.
B)   occur because chicks that hatch last are typically larger than their older siblings.
C)   serve to enhance the growth and competitiveness of chicks that hatch last.
D)   serve to maintain the advantages of being the last to hatch.

Question 9

The disappearance of the proleg behaviors in the tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) and the disappearance of leg movements associated with hatching in the domestic chicken (Gallus domesticus) differ from one another in that

Accepted Answer

A)   the loss in hornworms is due to a sudden drop in hormones, while in chickens it is due to degeneration resulting from disuse.
B)   the loss in hornworms is due to degeneration resulting from disuse, while in chickens it is due to a sudden drop in hormones.
C)   the loss in hornworms is due to modification to serve other patterns of behavior, while in chickens it is due to the dismantling of the underlying neural circuitry.
D)   the loss in hornworms is due to the dismantling of the underlying neural circuitry, while in chickens it is modified to serve other patterns of behavior.

Question 10

Maternal attachment differs from filial imprinting in that maternal attachment

Accepted Answer

A)   has a sensitive period with more gradual onset and termination.
B)   is due almost entirely to endogenous factors.
C)   occurs in adult animals.
D)   produces effects that are more easily reversed.

Question 11

Which of the following would have been part of the definition of a "critical period" as originally defined by Konrad Lorenz? That the critical period was a phase of an animal's development that

Accepted Answer

A)   differed in duration among species.
B)   produced irreversible effects.
C)   was fairly extended.
D)   was gradual in onset and termination.

Question 12

In order for Peking ducklings to develop an appropriate following response, Gottlieb and coworkers demonstrated that they must

Accepted Answer

A)   be reared in isolation so that they are not exposed to conflicting stimuli.
B)   hear calls typical of another species, such as a chicken, to acquire appropriate discriminations.
C)   hear their own or their siblings' contentment calls after hatching.
D)   hear their own or their siblings' contentment calls before hatching.

Question 13

Evidence for sexual imprinting has been found in mammals as well as birds, for example in studies conducted by Kendrick and colleagues with sheep and goats. What physical characteristics do these animals seem to be attending to as they develop their preferences?

Accepted Answer

A)   coat texture
B)   facial features
C)   individual odors
D)   vocal characteristics

Question 14

Reimers and colleagues (2007) studied 13 male chimpanzees who had experienced profound social isolation and found that, even two decades or more later, they could recover and live less stressful lives with conspecifics. This capacity for resiliency is referred to as

Accepted Answer

A)   developmental homeostatis.
B)   early deprivation effects.
C)   own-species bias.
D)   rehabilitative buffering.

Question 15

The more recent term "sensitive period" has largely replaced Lorenz's earlier term "critical period". This is because the newer term reflects the results of recent research suggesting that the developmental periods being described

Accepted Answer

A)   are brief.
B)   are gradual in onset and termination.
C)   are well-defined.
D)   produce irreversible effects.

Question 16

Research suggests that song development in sparrows consists of two phases: a sensory phase and a sensorimotor phase. During the sensory phase,

Accepted Answer

A)   sounds heard early in life are stored in memory.
B)   the bird begins to crystallize his song pattern.
C)   the bird is about seven or eight months of age.
D)   the bird retrieves a learned song from memory and begins to rehearse it.

Question 17

Field experiments with free-living birds, such as those conducted by Slagsvold and coworkers, indicate that species vary in their sensitivity to sexual imprinting. It has been suggested that sensitivity to sexual imprinting may be decreased in species that are

Accepted Answer

A)   highly social.
B)   monogamous.
C)   solitary.
D)   all of the above.

Question 18

As young male song sparrows move from the plastic phase of song to the crystallized phase, they sometimes drop songs from their plastic song repertoire.

Accepted Answer

A)   8-10 songs may be dropped, leaving the bird with a crystallized repertoire of 1-3 songs.
B)   Degree of song sharing with neighboring birds tends to be negatively correlated with male survival.
C)   Dropped songs tend to match the songs of neighboring males less well than do retained songs.
D)   Songs tend to be dropped randomly, thus neighboring birds end up having a distinctive repertoire.

Question 19

You would have a higher probability of being able to sing your species song at sexual maturity without having heard it during the earliest stages of your life if you were a

Accepted Answer

A)   canary.
B)   brown-headed cowbird.
C)   white-crowned sparrow.
D)   zebra finch.

Question 20

The songs of male cowbirds reared in isolation from male conspecifics were substantially more appealing to female cowbirds than were the songs of normal males. Why were their songs believed to be more potent than those of the group reared males?

Accepted Answer

A)   Group reared males learned a slightly more confused version of the song than did isolates.
B)   Group reared males sang high potency songs and were frequently killed, leaving only the isolates to sing.
C)   The isolates had not yet discarded the extra songs from an overproduced repertoire.
D)   The isolates had not yet learned to modulate the potency of their songs in the presence of dominant males.

Exam 8: The Development of Behavior

What does happen "when you put a chicken back into an egg?" as did Bekoff and Kauer (1984) ?