作者： JEFFREY RUSHEN¹ , ALISTAIR B LAWRENCE
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摘要: Stereotypic behaviours have had a high profile in attempts to develop behavioural indicators of animal welfare and they are often described as ‘abnormal'. However, such a description does little to further understanding. In this chapter, we suggest that the motivational processes that govern'normal'behaviour can also be used to understand stereotypic behaviour (see also Mason, 1991). There is evidence (Fentress, 1973, 1976) that under some conditions motivational systems have an inherent tendency to become'selforganized'. Self-organized systems are those that are less easily disrupted by environmental input and which involve highly predictable sequences of behaviour. For example, sequences of grooming by mice contain rapid phases which are more stereotyped and less easily disrupted than the slower and more complex movements that are found at the beginning and end of the sequence (Fentress, 1973). Since these are some of the properties that define abnormal stereotypic behaviour (Ödberg, 1978; Chapter 2), it is tempting to suggest that such normal processes can explain the occurrence of abnormal stereotypies (Fentress, 1976).The motivational analysis of behaviour is the study of those causal factors that underlie the expression of behaviour. These causal factors can be broadly divided into those that relate to specific motivational states (eg to feeding) and other, less specific factors (eg arousal) that can modulate the expression of a number of different motivational states. The emphasis in studies of motivation is often on the short-term control of behaviour, but longer term factors, such as those involved in learning, clearly have …