You observe scrub jays hiding food and notice that one particular individual only pretends to hide food. What kind of experiment could you perform to test whether this behavior was random or in response to another signal?
A. Observe more of these behaviors in the wild and try to determine if the behavior is random.
B. Hypothesize a set of signals that could produce this behavior and try to match the behaviors with the signals.
C. Attempt to reproduce the behavior in captivity by using bird models and a computer simulation.
D. Isolate the individual birds in a laboratory and repeat the observations.
Answer:B
You observe scrub jays hiding food and notice that one particular individual only pretends to hide food. What kind of experiment could you perform to test whether this behavior was random or in response to another signal?
A. Observe more of these behaviors in the wild and try to determine if the behavior is random. B. Hypothesize a set of signals that could produce this behavior and try to match the behaviors with the signals. C. Attempt to reproduce the behavior in captivity by using bird models and a computer simulation. D. Isolate the individual birds in a laboratory and repeat the observations.