Run experiments to populate the chart.
| Decoy | Observation | Response [s] | Tongue [s] | Jumps | Distance [RU] | Dwell [s] | Escape duration [s] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No completed measurement yet. | |||||||
Many animals respond to specific environmental features with fixed, innate sequences of movement. Such a feature is called a key stimulus. When the key stimulus matches the corresponding innate releasing mechanism in the animal's nervous system, it triggers a fixed action pattern – a species-specific and largely invariant sequence of movements that does not have to be learned.
The behavioural scientist Jörg-Peter Ewert investigated this principle in the common toad. On a rotating carousel, he moved decoys of different shapes past a sitting toad. Depending on the shape of the moving decoy, the toad responded either by orienting towards potential prey or by turning away and escaping.
Task: Investigate the decoys one after another. Compare the automatically recorded times, jumps, distances, and dwell times in the chart and table. Then rank the strengths of the approach and escape responses and infer which shape characteristics act as key stimuli.