Distinction Between Acquired Experience and Instincts
Acquired behavioral programs differ fundamentally from innate instinctive activity (such as the behavior of the Sphex wasp). The main difference lies in flexibility: relying on memory, the animal responds to leading conditioned signals that immediately direct it toward reinforcement.
In a formed skill, intermediate stage results that are not essential for satisfying the dominant drive are simply ignored. The organism does not need to reproduce the entire chain of actions from scratch every time if the shortest path to a useful result is already fixed in memory.
Stages of Adaptive Activity Formation
The process of learning and information consolidation in memory can be analyzed using the example of a puppy's feeding drive in an unfamiliar room:
- Initial entry into the environment. Genetic mechanisms are triggered: feeding motivation and an orienting-exploratory reaction. The animal actively explores all objects via trial and error. At this stage, absolutely all stimuli encountered on the way to food are recorded in memory.
- Behavioral programming. From the array of recorded information, only the most significant stimuli (e.g., the room setting) are selected. These become the leading signals.
- Re-entry into the same environment. Behavior changes radically. The animal rushes directly to the place where it previously found food, using the mechanism of a conditioned reflex. Intermediate inedible objects no longer elicit exploratory interest.
Thus, only those stimuli that are reliably associated with obtaining reinforcement acquire special significance.
Behavior in a Changing Environment
If external environmental conditions change frequently and haphazardly, and reinforcement becomes unstable, the initial spatial stimuli lose their signaling value. In such cases, the organism is forced to switch its orientation to new, more reliable signals.
A dynamic behavioral program always includes two components:
- Formation of conditioned reflexes (selection of stimuli associated with vital activity).
- Inhibition of conditioned stimuli (if they cease to lead to the satisfaction of the need).
According to classical physiological concepts, it is the presence of reinforcement that determines whether a signal retains its significance in individual life.
General Patterns and Systemogenesis
The formation of acquired behavior obeys three main patterns:
- Pronounced orienting-exploratory activity to retrieve old skills in a new setting.
- Selective connection with informationally significant stimuli, the traces of which are integrated into the action acceptor apparatus.
- Dynamic character of programming: programs are easily modified depending on the relevance of stimuli.
The process of improving so-called systemquants of behavior during learning is called systemogenesis. It affects the nodal stages of system architectonics: the formation of the action acceptor and efferent synthesis.
Interestingly, somatovegetative support does not remain static during this process—it changes predictably across stages of skill acquisition, automation, and extinction. If living conditions become stable and periodically repeating, a dynamic stereotype begins to form in the organism.