Abstract
Maintenance in the face of change is the status quo for most organisms. Remaining adapted requires that behavior be coupled with changes in environments, which may be extremely complex in their patterning or essentially unpredictable; we understand only superficially the processes through which coupling is established and maintained. Here I explore this problem by considering the paradox that animals are both conservative in their behavior, or resilient with regard to changes in their surroundings, and able to track these changes by plastically altering their own behavior. Consideration of these qualities, especially how they interact in the context of various kinds of environments and various patterns of environmental variation, yields useful insights into adaptation and raises fundamental questions about the organization of behaving systems in general.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Astrom, K. J. (1980). Self-tuning regulators—Design principles and applications. In Narendra, K. S., and Monopoli, R. V. (eds.), Applications of Adaptive Control, Academic Press, New York.
Atkinson, D. E. (1977). Cellular Energy Metabolism and Its Regulation, Academic Press, New York.
Bandler, R., and Grinder, J. (1975). The Structure of Magic. I: A Book about Language and Therapy, Science and Behavior Books, Palo Alto.
Bateson, G. (1979). Mind and Nature, Dutton, New York.
Beer, S. (1975). Platform for Change, Wiley, London.
Bohm, D. (1969). Some remarks on the notion of order. In Waddington, C. H. (ed.), Towards and Theoretical Biology, Aldine Press, Chicago.
Bonner, J. (1973). Control programs in biological development. In Pattee, H. H. (ed.), Hierarchy Theory: The Challenge of Complex Systems, George Braziller, New York.
Bransford, J. D., Franks, J. J., Nitsch, K. E. and McCarrell, N. S. (1977). Toward unex-plaining memory. In Shaw, R. S., and Bransford, J. D. (eds.), Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Brewer, W. F. (1973). The problem of meaning and the interrelationship of the higher mental processes. In Weimer, W. B., and Palermo, D. S. (eds.), Cognition and the Symbolic Processes, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Bronowski, J. (1977). A Sense of the Future, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Bronowski, J. (1978). The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Browne, J. C. (1983). Parallel computations and the next generation of supercomputers. SIAM News 16:8–9.
Calder, W. A. (1974). Consequences of body size for avian energetics. In Paynter, R. A., Jr. (ed.), Avian Energetics, Nuttall Ornithology Club Publ. #15.
Calvert, T. W., Chapman, J., and Patla, A. (1982). The simulation of human movement. Proc. Graphics Interface 82:227–234.
Cerf, V. G., and Kirstein, P. K. (1978). Issues in packet-network interconnection. Proc. IEEE 66:1386–1408.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Cyert, R. M. (1983). Personal computing in education and research. Science 222:1.
Dawkins, R. (1976). Hierarchical organization: A candidate principle for ethology. In Bateson, P. P. G., and Hinde, R. A. (eds.), Growing Points in Ethology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Edelman, G. M. (1978). Group selection and phasic reentrant signaling: A theory of higher brain function. In Edelman, G. M., and Mountcastle, V. B., (eds.), The Mindful Brain, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Findley, D. (1981). Applied Time Series Analysis, Vol. 2, Academic Press, New York.
Elliott, J. P., Cowan, I. McT. and Holling, C. S. (1977). Prey capture by the African lion. Can. J. Zool. 55:1811–1828.
Feinsinger, P., and Colwell, R. K. (1978). Community organization among neotropical nectar-feeding birds. Am. Zool. 18:779–795.
Fentress, J. C. (1972). Development and patterning of movement sequences in inbred mice. In Kiger, J. (ed.), The Biology of Behavior, Oregon State University Press, Corvallis.
Fentress, J. C. (1973). Specific and nonspecific factors in the causation of behavior. In Bateson, P. P. G., and Klopfer, P. H. (eds.), Perspectives in Ethology, Vol. 1, Plenum Press, New York.
Fentress, J. C. (1976). Dynamic boundaries of patterned behaviour: Interaction and self-organization. In Bateson, P. P. G., and Hinde, R. A. (eds.), Growing Points in Ethology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Fentress, J. C., and Stilwell, F. (1973). Grammar of a movement sequence in inbred mice. Nature 244:52–53.
Festinger, L. (1962). Cognitive dissonance. Sci. Am. 207:93–102.
Fretwell, S. D. (1972). Populations in a Seasonal Environment, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Fromm, E. (1965). Escape from Freedom, Avon, New York.
Gallistel, C. R. 1980. The Organization of Action: A New Synthesis, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Gass, C. L. (1978). Experimental studies of foraging in complex laboratory environments. Am. Zool. 18:617–626.
Gass, C. L., and Montgomerie, R. D. (1981). Hummingbird foraging behaviour: Decisionmaking and energy regulation. In Kamil, A. C., and Sargent, T. D. (eds.), Foraging Behavior: Ecological, Ethological, and Psychological Approaches, Garland, New York.
Gendlin, E. T. (1978). Focusing, Everest House, New York.
Gibson, J. J. (1966). The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, Houghton-Mifflin, Boston.
Giuliano, V. E. (1982). The mechanism of office work. Sci. Am. 247:114–130.
Golani, I. (1976). Homeostatic motor processes in mammalian interactions: A choreography of display. In Bateson, P. P. G., and Klopfer, P. H. (eds.), Perspectives in Ethology, Vol. 2, Plenum Press, New York.
Goodman, D., and Kelso, J. A. S. (1980). Are movements prepared in parts? Not under compatible (naturalized) conditions. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 109:475–495.
Griffin, D. R. (1981). The Question of Animal Awareness, William Kaufman, Los Altos.
Grobstein, C. (1973). Hierarchical order and neogenesis. In Pattee, H. H. (ed.), Hierarchy Theory: The Challenge of Complex Systems, Braziller, New York.
Groves, S. (1982). Aspects of foraging in Black Oystercatchers, Ph.D. Thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (unpublished).
Gunn, T. G. (1982). The mechanization of design and manufacturing. Sci. Am. 247:114–130.
Hailman, J. P. (1982). Ontogeny: Toward a general theoretical framework for ethology. In Bateson, P. P. G., and Klopfer, P. H. (eds.), Perspectives in Ethology, Vol. 5, Plenum Press, New York.
Hainsworth, F. R., and Wolf, L. L. (1978). The economics of temperature regulation in non-mammalian organisms. In Wang, L., and Hudson, J., (eds.), Strategies in the Cold: Natural Torpidity and Thermogenesis, Academic Press, New York.
Halwes, T. (1973). Structural realism, coalitions, and the relationship of Gisbonian, Con-structivist, and Buddhist theories of perception. In Weimer, W. B., and Palermo, D. S. (eds.), Cognition and the Symbolic Processes, Lawrence Earlbaum, Hillsdale.
Hixon, M. A., Carpenter, F. L., and Paton, D. C. (1983). Territory area, flower density, and time budgeting in hummingbirds: An experimental and theoretical analysis. Am. Nat. 122:366–391.
Hofstadter, D. R. (1979). Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Basic Books, New York.
Holling, C. S. (1978). Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management, Wiley, New York.
Ingber, L. (1981). Attention, physics, and teaching. J. Soc. Biol. Struct. 4:225–235.
Janetos, A. C., and Cole, B. J. (1981). Imperfectly optimal animals. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 9:203–209.
Jantsch, E. (1980). The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution, Pergamon Press, Oxford.
Jenkins, J. J. (1977). Remember that old theory of memory? Well forget it!! In Shaw, R. S., and Bransford, J. D. (eds.), Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology, Lawrence-Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Kamil, A. C., and Sargent, T. D. (1981). Foraging Behavior: Ecological, Ethological, and Psychological Approaches, Garland, New York.
Kamil, A. C., and Yoerg, S. I. (1982). Learning and foraging behavior. In Bateson, P. P. G., and Klopfer, P. H. (eds.), Perspectives in Ethology, Vol. 5, Plenum Press, New York.
Keele, S. W. (1973). Attention and Human Performance, Goodyear, Pacific Palisades.
Keele, S. W. (1980). Behavioral analysis of motor control. In Brooks, V. B. (ed.), Handbook of Physiology (Vol. 3): Motor Control, American Physiology Society, Bethesda.
Kelso, J. A. S., and Tuller, B. (1981). Toward a theory of apractic syndromes. Brain Language 12:224–245.
Laing, R. D. (1967). The Politics of Experience, Penguin, Markham.
Laing, R. D. (1972). The Politics of the Family and Other Essays, Vintage, New York.
Levine, R. D. (1982). Supercomputers. Sci. Am. 246:118–135.
Levins, R. (1973). The limits of complexity. In Pattee, H. H. (ed.), Hierarchy Theory: The Challenge of Complex Systems, George Braziller, New York.
Lewin, D. I. (1983). Carnegie-Mellon and IBM sign joint development contract. SigPC Notes 5(1/2):6–8.
March, J. G. (1978). Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice. Bell. J. Economics 9:587–608.
Marier, P. (1979). Early patterns of perception. Nat. Hist. 88:7–17.
Maturana, H. R. (1978). Biology of language: The epistemology of reality. In Miller, G. A., and Lenneberg, E. (eds.), Psychology and Biology of Language and Thought: Essays in Honor of Eric Lenneberg, Academic Press, New York.
Maturana, H. R. (1980). Autopoiesis: Reproduction, heredity, and evolution. In Zeleny, M. (ed.), Autopoiesis: Dissipative Structures and Spontaneous Social Order, Westview Press, Boulder.
Maturana, H. R., and Guiloff, G. D. (1980). The quest for the intelligence of intelligence. J. Soc. Biol. Struct. 3:135–148.
Maturana, H. R., and Varela, F. J. (1972). Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, D. Reidel, Dordrecht.
May, R. M. (1976). Theoretical Ecology: Principles and Applications, W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia.
Maynard Smith, J. 1978. Optimization theory in evolution. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 9:31–56.
Mayr, E. (1974). Behavior programs and evolutionary strategies. Am. Sci. 62:650–659.
Menzel, E. W., and Juno, C. (1982). Marmosets (Saguinus fuscicollis): Are learning sets learned? Science 217:750–752.
Menzel, E. W., and Wyers, E. J. (1981). Cognitive aspects of animal behaviour. In Kamil, A. C. and Sargent, T. D. (eds.), Foraging Behaviour: Ecological, Ethological, and Psychological Approaches, Garland, New York.
Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychol. Rev. 63:81–97.
Montgomerie, R. D., and Gass, C. L. (1981). Energy limitation of hummingbird populations in tropical and temperate communities. Oecologia 50:162–165.
Moskowitz, B. A. (1978). The acquisition of language. Sci. Am. 239:92–108.
Newman, W. M., and Sproull, R. F. (1979). Principles of Interactive Computer Graphics, 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Pattee, H. H. (1973). The physical basis and origin of hierarchical control. In Pattee, H. H. (ed.), Hierarchy Theory: The Challenge of Complex Systems, Braziller, New York.
Pattee, H. H. (1982). The need for complementarity in models of cognitive behaviour: A response to Fowler and Turvey. In Weimer, W. B., and Palermo, D. S. (eds.), Cognition and the Symbolic Processes, Vol. 2, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Patton, G. S. (1947). War As I Knew It, Part 3, Houghton-Mifflin, Boston.
Pribram, K. H. (1982). Reflections on the place of brain in the ecology of mind. In Weimer, W. B., and Palermo, D. S. (eds.), Cognition and the Symbolic Processes, Vol. 2, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Pulliam, H. R. (1981). Learning to forage optimally. In Kamil, A. C., and Sargent, T. D. (eds.), Foraging Behavior: Ecological, Ethological, and Psychological Approaches, Garland, New York.
Pulliam, H. R., and Dunford, C. (1980). Programmed to Learn, Columbia University Press, New York.
Pyke, G. H., Pulliam, H. R., and Charnov, E. L. (1977). Optimal foraging: A selective review of theory and tests. Q. Rev. Biol. 52:137–154.
Rachlin, H., Battalio, R., Kagel, J., and Green, L. (1981). Maximization theory in behavioural psychology. Behav. Brain Sci. 4:371–417.
Ruitenbeek, H. M. (1972). Going Crazy: The Radical Therapy of R. D. Laing and Others, Bantam, New York.
Schänk, R. C., and Abelson, R. P. (1977). Scripts, Plans, Goals, and Understanding, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Schneider, W., and Shiffrin, R. M. (1977). Controlled and automatic information processing: I. Detection, search, and attention. Psychol. Rev. 84:1–66.
Shaw, R. S., and Bransford, J. D. (1977). Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Shaw, R. S., and Turvey, M. T. (1981). Coalitions as models for ecosystems: A realist perspective on perceptual organization. In Kubovy, M., and Pomerantz, J. R. (eds.), Perceptual Organization, Lawrence Erlbaum, New York.
Shaw, R. S., Turvey, M. T., and Mace, W. (1982). Ecological psychology: The consequences of a commitment to realism. In Weimer, W. B., and Palermo, D. S. (eds.), Cognition and the Symbolic Processes, Vol. 2, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Shettleworth, S. J. (1971). Constraints on learning. Adv. Study Anim. Behav. 4:1–68.
Shettleworth, S. J. (1984). Function and mechanism in learning. In Zeiler, M., and Harzern, P. (eds.), Advances in analysis of behavior, Vol. 3: Biological Factors in Learning, Wiley, New York.
Shiffrin, R. M., and Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory. Psychol. Rev. 84:127–190.
Shoch, J. F., Dalai, Y. K., Crane, R. C., and Redell, D. D. (1981). Evolution of the Ethernet Local Computer Network, Xerox Office Products Division T8102.
Simon, H. A. (1973). The organization of complex systems. In Pattee, H. H. (ed.), Hierarchy Theory: The Challenge of Complex Systems, Braziller, New York.
Simon, H. A. (1974). How big is a chunk? Science 183:482–488.
Simon, H. A. (1976). The information-processing system called ‘human memory.’ In Rosenzweig, M. R. and Bennett, E. L. (eds.), Neural Mechanisms of Learning and Memory, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Simon, H. A. (1978). On how to decide what to decide. Bell J. Economics 9:494–507.
Simon, H.A. (1979a). Rational decision-making in business organizations. In Les Prix Nobel, 1978, Almquist and Wiksell, Stockholm.
Simon, H. A. (1979b). Information processing models of cognition. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 30:363–396.
Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Knopf, New York.
Skinner, B. F. (1981). Selection by consequences. Science 213:501–504.
Slovic, P., Kunreuther, H., and White, G. F. (1974). Decision processes, rationality and adjustment to natural hazards. In White, G. F. (ed.), Natural Hazards: Local, National, Global, Oxford University Press.
Snodgrass, R. (1980). Proposal for a joint effort in personal scientific computing: Carnegie-Mellon University. SigPC Notes 3(3/4):40–66.
Staddon, J. E. R. (1980). Limits to Action: The Allocation of Individual Behaviour, Academic Press, New York.
Sutherland, G. D. (1984). Spatial Memory Processes in Hummingbirds: The Influence of Energetics and Spatial Distribution of Food Resources on Foraging Behaviour. M. Sc. Thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (unpublished).
Turvey, M. T. (1977). Preliminaries to a theory of action with reference to vision. In Shaw, R. S., and Bransford, J. D. (eds.), Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Walters, C. J., and Hilborn, R. (1978). Ecological optimization and adaptive management. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 9:157–188.
Weimer, W. B. (1977). Motor theories of the mind. In Shaw, R. S., Bransford, J. D. (eds.), Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Wickelgren, W. A. (1979). Chunking and consolidation: A theoretical synthesis of semantic networks, configuring in conditioning, S-R versus cognitive learning, normal forgetting, the amnesic syndrome, and the hippocampal arousal system. Psychol. Rev. 86:44–60.
Wickelgren, W. A. (1981). Human learning and memory. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 32:21–52.
Wickramasekera, I. (1976). Biofeedback, Behavior Therapy, and Hypnosis: Potentiating the Verbal Control of Behaviour for Clinicians, Nelson-Hall, Chicago.
Wolf, L. L., and Hainsworth, F. R., and Gill, F. B. (1975). Foraging efficiencies and time budgets in nectar-feeding birds. Ecology 56:117–128.
Wolf, L. L., Stiles, F. G., and Hainsworth, F. R. (1976). Ecological organization of a tropical, highland hummingbird community. J. Anim. Ecol. 45:349–379.
Zach, R. (1978). Selection and dropping of whelks by Northwestern crows. Behaviour 67:134–148.
Zach, R., and Smith, J. N. M. (1981). Optimal foraging in wild birds? In Kamil, A. C., and Sargent, T. D. (eds.), Foraging Behavior: Ecological, Ethological, and Psychological Approaches, Garland, New York.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1985 Plenum Press, New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gass, C.L. (1985). Behavioral Foundations of Adaptation. In: Bateson, P.P.G., Klopfer, P.H. (eds) Perspectives in Ethology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0232-3_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0232-3_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-0234-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-0232-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive