Animal Behavior/Definition

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[edit] Animal Behavior

Animal Behavior refers to the wild and wonderful ways in which animals interact with each other, with other living beings, and with the environment. * Read also Behavior Previous lesser definitions include: *"Behavior is motion". "Movement, not necessarily movement of the whole animal... muscular contractions" or "The whole function of the nervous system can be summed up in one word, conduction." Sir Charles Scott Sherrington. In his view the basic element of behavior was formed in a reflex-arc, where receptor organs receive sensory stimuli and are conducted to an effector organ. This highly reductionist position has received criticism from many angles, specifically, from arguments that it fails to account for spontaneous behaviors, behaviours that are characterized by a lack of motion, as well as disregarding the complexity of emergent properties in behavior.

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