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Related Concept Videos

Fixed Action Patterns01:06

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A fixed action pattern (FAP) is a specific, hard-wired sequence of behaviors that occurs in response to an external stimulus, called a sign stimulus. The behavior is “fixed” because it is essentially unchangeable—proceeding similarly across individuals of a species every time it occurs.
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Cognitive Learning01:21

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Cognitive learning is based on purposive behavior, incidental learning, and insight learning.
E. C. Tolman's theory of purposive behavior emphasizes that much behavior is goal-directed. He argued that to understand behavior, we must look at the entire sequence of actions leading to a goal. For instance, high school students study hard, not just due to past reinforcement but also to achieve the goal of getting into a good college.
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Instinctive drift refers to the tendency of animals to revert to their innate behaviors despite repeated reinforcement. Breland and Breland demonstrated this concept in an experiment with a raccoon. The raccoon was trained to pick up two coins and place them in a container in exchange for food. Initially, the raccoon learned to associate the coins with food, making them a conditioned stimulus or a substitute for food. However, over time, the raccoon became less willing to put the coins into the...
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A schema is a mental construct consisting of a cluster or collection of related concepts (Bartlett, 1932). There are many different types of schemata, and they all have one thing in common: schemata are a method of organizing information that allows the brain to work more efficiently. When a schema is activated, the brain makes immediate assumptions about the person or object being observed.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 25, 2025

Behavioral Assessment of Manual Dexterity in Non-Human Primates
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Functional fixedness in chimpanzees.

Sonja J Ebel1,2,3, Christoph J Völter4,5, Alejandro Sánchez-Amaro4,6

  • 1Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. sonja_ebel@eva.mpg.de.

Scientific Reports
|May 27, 2024
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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Chimpanzees exhibit functional fixedness, a bias towards using tools for familiar functions. This cognitive limitation persists over time and even after observational learning, challenging the idea that stable function representations are uniquely human.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Primatology
  • Comparative Psychology

Background:

  • Human tool use relies on object function representations.
  • These representations can lead to functional fixedness, hindering novel problem-solving.
  • It remains debated whether non-human primates experience functional fixedness.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the presence of functional fixedness in chimpanzees.
  • To determine if chimpanzees show cognitive biases in tool use based on prior experience.

Main Methods:

  • Chimpanzees solved a problem using a tool, then faced a new problem requiring a different tool function.
  • A control group did not experience the initial problem-solving task.
  • The fixation effect was assessed immediately and after a nine-month interval, including observational learning conditions.

Main Results:

  • Chimpanzees demonstrated reduced efficiency in the second problem after initial tool use, indicating functional fixedness.
  • This effect persisted nine months later.
  • Functional fixedness was observed even when chimpanzees learned tool functions through observation.

Conclusions:

  • Chimpanzees likely exhibit functional fixedness, similar to humans.
  • Stable object function representations may not be a uniquely human trait.
  • Findings suggest shared cognitive mechanisms for tool use and potential limitations in cognitive flexibility across species.