Vacuum activity
Vacuum activities (or vacuum behaviors) are fixed actions of animals, which are triggered by inherited behavior patterns, although the usual key stimulus is absent.[1] This type of behavior shows that a key stimulus is not always needed to produce a behavior.[2] Vacuum activity is hard to define because it is never certain that no stimulus of any kind triggered the behavior.
History
The term was first established by the ethologist Konrad Lorenz in the 1930s after observations of a hand-raised starling.[3]
Examples
Squirrels that have lived in metal cages without bedding all their lives do all the actions that a wild squirrel does when burying a nut. It scratches at the metal floor as digging a hole, it acts as if it were taking a nut to the place where it scratched though there is no nut, then it pats the metal floor as if covering an imaginary buried nut.
Lorenz observed that a bird that catches flies snapped at the air when flying as if it were catching insects though there were no real insects there.
Weaverbirds go through complicated nest building behavior when there is no nest building material present.[4]
Adult cats that were weaned too early "suckle" exposed human skin when relaxed. Also, cat litterbox training is based on redirecting a vacuum activity (burying faeces to minimize scent exposure to potential rivals or prey; absolutely useless to a housecat) into a productive habit for a pet.
Richard Dawkins has characterized some aspects of religion as vacuum activity in humans[5]. Dawkins suggests that gratitude and grudges in vacuum — i.e. where there is no person responsible, e.g. good or poor weather — leads to the vacuum activity of giving thanks or blame with no recipient, with a side effect of inventing gods as a target for the thanks or blame.
See also
External links
- University of Tennessee Knoxville: Office of Information Technology. Vacuum activity.
- Mercks Veterinary Manual: Principles of Behavior Modification and Treatment.
References
- ^ Russell A. Dewey, PhD. Psychology: An Introduction. Chapter 8: Vacuum, Displacement, and Redirected Activities.
- ^ University of Plymouth: Department of Psychology. Lorenz Hydraulic Model of Motivation.
- ^ Lynne D. Houck; Lee C. Drickamer. 1996. Foundations of animal behavior: classic papers with commentaries. Animal Behavior Society.
- ^ Edward M. Barrows 2001. Animal behavior desk reference: a dictionary of animal behavior, ecology, and evolution.
- ^ Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National broadcast reporting on the 2010 Global Atheist Convention.
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