四紋豆象(Callosobruchus maculatus)之繁殖行為與生活史策略(2/3)

Animal cognition involves
information processing and
decision-making in a dynamic fashion.
An apparatus to reveal the structure of
cognitive processing is to encode the
sequential behaviors into functional
schemes so that the behavioral database
can be dissected and reassembled without
being constrained by unrealistic model
assumptions. Specifically this set of new
analyzing techniques is applied on the
cognitive processing of the female bean
weevil, Callosobruchus maculatus,
which explores environment mainly for
the ovipositional purpose. First, using
functional coding schemes, individual
female bean weevil’s longitudinal
behavioral trajectory across a geometric
landscape is coded into a two-level
hierarchy code sequences. With each
code standing for a biological state and,
at the same time, representing a random
generating algorithm, the main use of this
algorithmic composition is to serve as a
spatial-temporal platform to explore
pattern recognitions on the beetle’s
cognitive processing. The underpinning
is that statistically this hierarchy is a new
way of summarizing behavioral data by
mapping out possible non-stationarity of
the underlying cognitive mechanisms
behind the observed behavioral database.
Consequently our approach is very useful
to preserve the individual beetle’s local
as well as global cognitive templates and
patterns, and its temporal orders driven
by physiological outputs as responses to
the changes in environmental conditions.
As a final product, a structural system of
recognized patterns on a coherent
data-driven timescale potentially is a
very valuable model in cognitive science
and behavioral ecology.