Practice question · True or false
A goose that has begun the egg-rolling fixed action pattern will stop mid-movement if the egg is taken away.
Hints
- What makes a fixed action pattern fixed?
- It runs to completion once triggered.
Show the answer
False
Why
False. The pattern runs to completion regardless, the goose keeps tucking an egg that is no longer there. That is the defining property: a releasing stimulus starts it, and it then executes ballistically without feedback, which is what distinguishes it from goal-corrected behaviour.
Practise Fixed Action Patterns
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More questions on Fixed Action Patterns
- Sort each behavior by whether it is a Fixed Action Pattern or flexible, learned behavior.
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- Select every statement that is TRUE about sign stimuli and supernormal stimuli.
- A greylag goose whose egg is taken away mid-retrieval finishes the rolling sweep with nothing under her bill.…
- Order the causal chain of a Fixed Action Pattern, from trigger to completion.