Fixed action pattern
"Fixed action pattern" is an ethological term describing an instinctive behavioral sequence that is highly stereotyped and species-characteristic.
[3] These characteristics state that fixed action patterns are stereotyped, complex, species-characteristic, released, triggered, and independent of experience.
[4][5] Fixed action patterns have been shown to be evolutionarily advantageous, as they increase both fitness and speed.
[3] Fixed action patterns are said to be stereotyped, complex, species-characteristic, released, triggered, and independent of experience.
Several examples of sign stimuli can be seen through the observation of animal behaviour in their natural environment.
Experimenters have gone into these natural environments to better assess the stimuli and determine the key features of them that elicit a fixed action pattern.
[4][12] During the spring mating season, male sticklebacks' ventrum turns red and they establish a territory to build a nest.
[5] It has been shown that the greylag will also attempt to retrieve other egg-shaped objects, such as a golf ball, door knob, or even a model egg too large to have possibly been laid by the goose itself (i.e. a supernormal stimulus).
[11] These features that the stimulus has to obtain in order to trigger a resulting FAP were then given the official term of Sign Stimuli.
Scientists came to the realization that there must be an innate deciphering method that the goose goes through in order to determine a suitable sign stimulus.
The goose's IRM when put to the test in the natural world not being manipulated by scientific experimentation is almost always efficient in getting the desired item of an egg back into the nest.
[7] A young North American cowbird, for example, provides a supernormal stimulus to its foster parent, which will cause it to forage rapidly to satisfy the larger bird's demands.
[18] A nestling will provide higher levels of stimulus with noisier, more energetic behavior, communicating its urgent need for food.
[18] Parents in this situation have to work harder to provide food, otherwise their own offspring are likely to die of starvation.
[21][22] Male blond ring doves isolated from their own species will resort to courting a pigeon, then a human's hand, and finally expressing courtship activity alone in their box, if they are left alone for a long period of time.
[23] This behavior resembles that of nest digging during mating season, but is not released by the proper sign stimulus.
