Nikolaas Tinbergen

Niko Tinbergen

Tinbergen in 1978
Born 15 April 1907
The Hague, Netherlands
Died 21 December 1988 (aged 81)
Oxford, England
Residence United Kingdom
Nationality Dutch
Fields Zoologist, ethologist
Institutions Oxford University
Alma mater Leiden University
Doctoral advisor Hildebrand Boschma
Doctoral students
Known for Hawk/goose effect
Four questions
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1973)

Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen FRS[1] (/ˈtɪnbɜrɡən/; Dutch: [ˈtɪnˌbɛrɣə(n)]; 15 April 1907 – 21 December 1988) was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz[2][3] for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns in animals.

In 1951, he published The Study of Instinct, an influential book on animal behaviour.

In the 1960s, he collaborated with filmmaker Hugh Falkus on a series of wildlife films, including The Riddle of the Rook (1972) and Signals for Survival (1969), which won the Italia prize in that year and the American blue ribbon in 1971.

Origins

Born in The Hague, Netherlands, he was one of five children of Dirk Cornelis Tinbergen and his wife Jeannette van Eek. His brother, Jan Tinbergen, won the first Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 1969.[4] Another brother, Luuk Tinbergen was also a noted biologist.

Tinbergen's interest in nature manifested itself when he was young. He studied biology at Leiden University and was a prisoner of war during World War II. Tinbergen's experience as a prisoner of the Nazis led to some friction with longtime intellectual collaborator Konrad Lorenz, and it was several years before the two reconciled. After the war, Tinbergen moved to England, where he taught at the University of Oxford and was a fellow first at Merton College and later at Wolfson College.[5] Several of his Oxford graduate students went on to become prominent biologists; these include Richard Dawkins, Marian Dawkins, Desmond Morris, and Iain Douglas Hamilton.

He married Elisabeth Rutten and they had five children. Later in life he suffered depression and feared he might, like his brother Luuk, commit suicide. He was treated by his friend, whose ideas he had greatly influenced, John Bowlby.[6] Tinbergen died on 21 December 1988, after suffering a stroke at his home in Oxford, England.

The Study of Instinct

Figure 1. Tinbergen's hierarchical model. Modified from The Study of Instinct (1951)

In 1951 Tinbergen’s The Study of Instinct was published. Behavioural ecologists and evolutionary biologists still recognize the contribution this book offered the field of behavioural science studies. The Study of Instinct summarises Tinbergen's ideas on innate behavioural reactions in animals and the adaptiveness and evolutionary aspects of these behaviours. By behaviour, he means the total movements made by the intact animal; innate behaviour is that which is not changed by the learning process. The major question of the book is the role of internal and external stimuli in controlling the expression of behaviour. In particular, he was interested in explaining 'spontaneous' behaviours: those that occurred in their complete form the first time they were performed and that seemed resistant to the effects of learning. He explains how behaviour can be considered a combination of these spontaneous behaviour patterns and as set series of reactions to particular stimuli. Behaviour is a reaction in that to a certain extent it is reliant on external stimuli, however it is also spontaneous since it is also dependent on internal causal factors. His model for how certain behavioural reactions are provoked was based on work by Konrad Lorenz. Lorenz postulated that for each instinctive act there is a specific energy which builds up in a reservoir in the brain. In this model, Lorenz envisioned a reservoir with a spring valve at its base that an appropriate stimulus could act on, much like a weight on a scale pan pulling against a spring and releasing the reservoir of energy, an action which would lead an animal to express the desired behaviour.[7] Tinbergen added complexity to this model, a model now known as Tinbergen’s hierarchical model. He suggested that motivational impulses build up in nervous centres in the brain which are held in check by blocks. The blocks are removed by an innate releasing mechanism that allows the energy to flow to the next centre (each centre containing a block that needs to be removed) in a cascade until the behaviour is expressed. Tinbergen’s model shows multiple levels of complexity and that related behaviours are grouped. An example is in his experiments with foraging honey bees. He showed that honey bees show curiosity for yellow and blue paper models of flowers, and suggested that these were visual stimuli causing the buildup of energy in one specific centre. However, the bees rarely landed on the model flowers unless the proper odour was also applied. In this case, the chemical stimuli of the odor allowed the next link in the chain to be released, encouraging the bee to land. The final step was for the bee to insert its mouthparts into the flower and initiate suckling. Tinbergen envisioned this as concluding the reaction set for honey bee feeding behaviour.[8]

Nobel Prize

In 1973 Tinbergen, along with Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns”.[9] The award recognized their studies on genetically programmed behaviour patterns, their origins, maturation and their elicitation by key stimuli. In his Nobel Lecture, Tinbergen addressed the somewhat unconventional decision of the Nobel Foundation to award the prize for Physiology or Medicine to three men who had until recently been regarded as “mere animal watchers”. Tinbergen stated that their revival of the “watching and wondering” approach to studying behaviour could indeed contribute to the relief of human suffering.[10] The studies performed by the trio on fish, insects and birds laid the foundation for further studies on the importance of specific experiences during critical periods of normal development, as well as the effects of abnormal psychosocial situations in mammals. At the time, these discoveries were stated to have caused “a breakthrough in the understanding of the mechanisms behind various symptoms of psychiatric disease, such as anguish, compulsive obsession, stereotypic behaviour and catatonic posture”.[11] Tinbergen’s contribution to these studies included the testing of the hypotheses of Lorenz/von Frisch by means of “comprehensive, careful, and ingenious experiments”[12] as well as his work on supernormal stimuli. The work of Tinbergen during this time was also regarded as having possible implications for further research in child development and behaviour.[13]

Four questions

Tinbergen described four questions he believed should be asked of any animal behaviour,[14][15] which were:

In ethology and sociobiology, causation and ontogeny are summarized as the "proximate mechanisms", while adaptation and phylogeny are the "ultimate mechanisms". They are still considered as the cornerstone of modern ethology, sociobiology and transdisciplinarity in Human Sciences.

Supernormal stimuli

A major body of Tinbergen's research focused on what he termed supernormal stimuli. This was the concept that one could build an artificial object which was a stronger stimulus or releaser for an instinct than the object for which the instinct originally evolved. He constructed plaster eggs to see which a bird preferred to sit on, finding that they would select those that were larger, had more defined markings, or more saturated color—and a dayglo-bright one with black polka dots would be selected over the bird's own pale, dappled eggs.

Tinbergen found that territorial male three-spined stickleback (a small freshwater fish) would attack a wooden fish model more vigorously than a real male if its underside was redder. He constructed cardboard dummy butterflies with more defined markings that male butterflies would try to mate with in preference to real females. The superstimulus, by its exaggerations, clearly delineated what characteristics were eliciting the instinctual response.

Among the modern works calling attention to Tinbergen's classic work is Deirdre Barrett's 2010 book, Supernormal Stimuli.

Autism

Tinbergen applied his observational methods to the problems of autistic children. He recommended a "holding therapy" in which parents hold their autistic children for long periods of time while attempting to establish eye contact, even when a child resists the embrace.[16] However, his interpretations of autistic behavior, and the holding therapy that he recommended, lacked scientific support[17] and the therapy is described as controversial and potentially abusive.[18]

Other interests and views

He was a member of the advisory committee to the Anti-Concorde Project.

On Tinbergen's religious views, he was an atheist.[19]

References

  1. ↑ Hinde, R. A. (1990). "Nikolaas Tinbergen. 15 April 1907-21 December 1988". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 36: 548. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1990.0043.
  2. ↑ Dewsbury, D. A. (2003). "The 1973 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine: Recognition for behavioral science?". American Psychologist 58 (9): 747–752. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.58.9.747. PMID 14584992.
  3. ↑ Raju, T. N. (1999). "The Nobel chronicles. 1973: Karl von Frisch (1886-1982); Konrad Lorenz (1903-89); and Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907-88)". Lancet 354 (9184): 1130. PMID 10509540.
  4. ↑ Lundberg, Erik (1969). "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1969". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  5. ↑ "Encyclopedia.com -- Nikolaas Tinbergen". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 16 March 2014.
  6. ↑ Van Der Horst, F. C. P. (2010). "John Bowlby's treatment of Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen's depressions". History of Psychology 13 (2): 206–208. doi:10.1037/a0019381c.
  7. ↑ Hinde, R. A. Ethological Models and the Concept of ‘Drive’. British Journal of the Philosophy of Science, 6, 321–331 (1956)
  8. ↑ Tinbergen, Nikolaas (1951). The Study of Instinct. Oxford University Press. pp. nnn–mmm.
  9. ↑ http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1973/
  10. ↑ Tinbergen, N. Ethology and stress diseases. Physiology Or Medicine: 1971-1980 19711980, 113 (1992)
  11. ↑ Zetterström, R. The Nobel Prize for the introduction of ethology, or animal behaviour, as a new research field: possible implications for child development and behaviour: Nobel prizes of importance to Paediatrics. Acta Paediatrica 96, 1105–1108 (2007).
  12. ↑
  13. ↑ Zetterström, R. The Nobel Prize for the introduction of ethology, or animal behaviour, as a new research field: possible implications for child development and behaviour: Nobel prizes of importance to Paediatrics. Acta Paediatrica 96, 1105–1108 (2007)
  14. ↑ Lorenz, K. (1937). "Biologische Fragestellung in der Tierpsychologie". Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 1: 24–32. doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.1937.tb01401.x. (in English: Biological Questions in Animal Psychology).
  15. ↑ Tinbergen, N. (1963). "On aims and methods of Ethology". Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 20 (4): 410–433. doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.1963.tb01161.x.
  16. ↑ Tinbergen N, Tinbergen EA (1986). Autistic Children: New Hope for a Cure (new ed.). Routledge. ISBN 0-04-157011-1.
  17. ↑ Bishop, D. V. M. (2008). "Forty years on: Uta Frith's contribution to research on autism and dyslexia, 1966–2006". The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 61 (1): 16–26. doi:10.1080/17470210701508665. PMC 2409181. PMID 18038335.
  18. ↑ Betty Fry Williams; Randy Lee Williams (2011). Effective programs for treating autism spectrum disorder: applied behavior analysis models. Taylor & Francis. pp. 53–. ISBN 978-0-415-99931-1. Retrieved 4 February 2012.
  19. ↑ Deirdre Barrett (2010). Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-0-393-06848-1. Tinbergen had never been a religious man. Wartime atrocities, however, had highlighted the absence of a deity for him while both sides invoked one aligned with themselves, and this turned him into a militant atheist.

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