Xref: utzoo sci.psychology:210 rec.birds:528 sci.bio:1078
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!amdahl!nsc!voder!blia!heather
From: heather@blia.BLI.COM (Heather Mackinnon)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology,rec.birds,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Intelligent Parrots, or Self-deception and Gullibility.
Message-ID: <4483@blia.BLI.COM>
Date: 11 Apr 88 21:26:05 GMT
References: <1988Mar4.162334.18184@utzoo.uucp> <4299@blia.BLI.COM> <2550@geac.UUCP>
Organization: Britton Lee, Los Gatos, CA
Lines: 23

About hardwired versus non-hardwired behavior:

Stimulating sections of the human brain can cause hallucinations of sight,
sound and smell and can also cause behaviors like walking in human beings.
So, if we say that walking in cats is instinctual, would we also say that 
it's instinctual in humans?  Would we say that the scent of roses or the
sound of someone playing Mozart on a piano is hardwired into the brain?
I don't know; I just think that the human behavior and our neuro-endocrine
system is not well enough understood to separate instinctual behavior from
learned behavior.

I remember reading in a psychobiology text some years ago that learned
physical skills are stored as programs in the cerebellum.  Thus, skills
such as throwing a ball, tying a shoelace or riding a bicycle are stored
as ballistic programs in the cerebellum.  These are all learned skills,
but, once learned, they are mediated by the cerebellum.  This improves
response time, since less processing is required before one acts.

Remember!  There are 10^10 neurons in the human brain, 10^11 of which are in
the cerebellum.  (10^10 is a low scientific estimate of the number of cells
in the human brain and 10^11 is a high estimate for the number of neurons
in the cerebellum.).

Heather Mackinnon