8.1. General principles of behavioral organization
Interaction with the outside world
An organism and its environment are inseparable. Interaction of living beings with the environment in higher animals is largely determined by brain functions, their mental or higher nervous activity through the analysis and synthesis of external influences, comparing these influences with internal states and active movement.
Interaction of living beings with the outside world includes:
- activity of analyzers;
- reflex responses;
- behavior aimed at satisfying the leading needs and actively influencing the environment;
- psychic and mental activity of a person;
- working activity of a person.
Functional behavior systems
Human and animal active behavior is determined by the activity of functional systems on the behavioral level. These functional systems, with their internal self-regulation mechanisms, cannot sufficiently maintain certain indicators of homeostasis. This requires the consumption of certain substances from the external environment or, conversely, the excretion of certain substances by the body. This role is performed by the external behavioral link of functional systems on the homeostatic level, due to which living organisms actively interact with the world around them.
Functional systems that include the behavioral self-regulation link include functional systems for maintaining the optimal nutrient level, body temperature, osmotic pressure, sexual functions, and excretion. In extreme conditions, the functional system that maintains optimal gas level also includes a behavioral link. Specific functional systems of behavioral and mental levels are aimed at achieving behavioral and socially significant results in a person.
Reflected reactions
Along with the organization of functional systems on the behavioral level, living organisms constantly react to various stimuli of the external environment; they construct adaptive reflected, or reflex, behavioral reactions ("perturbation reactions") in response to them.
The leading principles of behavior organization are reflex and systemic principles.
The reflex principle of behavior organization
From the perspective of reflex theory, behavior is considered as a reaction of organisms to influences of various external environmental factors. A significant contribution to the development of the reflex theory of behavior was made by I.P. Pavlov, who proposed considering two types of behavioral reflexes - unconditioned and conditioned. Unconditioned reflexes, according to Pavlov, are innate, i.e., genetically determined. An example of an unconditioned reflex is salivation when food effects oral cavity receptors. Unconditioned reflexes occur on the basis of innate reflex arcs. When adequate stimuli act on the corresponding receptors, unconditioned reflexes manifest relatively constantly. I.P. Pavlov identified complex unconditioned innate behavioral reflexes, which he homologated with instincts.
Complex unconditioned reflexes
Complex unconditioned reflexes include alimentary, defensive, sexual, orientative-trying, parental, etc. It is necessary to underline the orientative-trying activity - the reaction of animals to unexpected, as a rule, novel stimuli. I.P. Pavlov termed it the "what is this?" reaction. The orientative-trying activity has an adaptive value and is the basis of many forms of education.
Complex unconditioned reflexes manifest in specific behavioral and autonomic reactions of animals under the influence of appropriate stimuli. The most demonstrative in this regard is the complex alimentary reflex. It is displayed when food acts on distant receptors or the receptors of an animal's digestive tract in locomotor, as well as secretory and other autonomic reactions - changes in respiration, cardiac activity, etc. A complex defensive reflex, along with the animal's motor reaction, includes a change in a number of autonomic functions: secretory activity of the digestive glands, cardiac activity, respiration, sweating, etc.
Conditioned reflexes
A conditioned reflex is a qualitatively distinct form of reflex behavioral activity. According to I.P. Pavlov, conditioned reflexes are acquired by living beings during their individual life. They are related to learning. This is an extremely variable form of reflex activity. As demonstrated by I.P. Pavlov, in a conditioned reflex, an animal's response action is not determined by the stimulus itself but arises as a result of repeated coincidence (combination) of an external (conditioned) stimulus with vital activity (unconditioned reflexes). After that, a previously relatively indifferent stimulus begins to preemptively cause a reaction characteristic of an unconditioned stimulus. In other words, in the developed conditioned reflex, the conditioned stimulus preemptively reflects the properties of the unconditioned stimulus associated with it.
Development of the alimentary conditioned reflex
During the development of alimentary conditioned reflex, the initial factor is the nutritional need. At the first presentation of a conditional stimulus to a hungry dog, for example, the flash of electric light in front of it, the animal responds with an innate unconditioned reaction - an orientative-trying activity: turning its head and trunk in the direction of the light, looking at it. As a result of 10-20 repeated combinations of flashing lights (conditioned stimuli) and subsequent feeding of the animal (unconditioned stimulus), a temporary connection is formed in the hungry animal - a conditioned stimulus begins to cause an unconditioned reaction: in response to the flashing light, the animal has an advanced alimentary reaction - movement and salivation, which can be registered through a salivary duct fistula externalized to the surface of the dog's cheek. As a result of conditioned reflex development, there is a qualitative change in the effect of an external stimulus (light) on the body. Instead of an orientative-trying reaction, now it causes an alimentary reaction in the animal.