Fixed-action pattern

The translation of the term Instinktbewegung or Erbkoordination into fixed action pattern led to many misunderstandings. There is variation in the movement by intensity and speed. What is fixed is the score or script of the muscle actions. The movement may just occur as an intention movement or full blown, and it may run off fast or slow. What remains constant is the relative phase distance of the muscle actions involved. Form constancy, furthermore, is characteristic of any stereotyped movement and therefore not only a characteristic for a fixed action pattern. Innateness is the decisive characteristic. 

NONCONTACT ERECTION AS A FIXED-ACTION PATTERN EVOKED BY A VOLATILE ODOR... 

I use fixed-action pattern more or less synonymously with such alternatives as modal-action pattern, typic behavior, and species-typical behavior. ... 

It seems unlikely that noncontact erection will prove to be the only example of a non-investigatory fixed-action pattern displayed by mammals in response to volatile pheromones alone. Indeed, Kathleen Dorries (personal communication, July 1997) reports that sows occasionally—especially near the time of ovulation—display the standing reaction when only the odor of androstenone is present, and they respond after a latency of only a few seconds. Perhaps part of the reason for the paucity of previous examples lies in how behavior tends to be observed relative to the latency required for the response. The longer the interval between stimulus and response, the less likely it is that the response will be observed or, if observed, that it will be attributed to the relevant stimulus. This question prompts a closer look at the traditional distinction between releaser and primer pheromones. 

Following the detection of a tussive stimulus, the airway s sensory nerve terminals are depolarized to a critical point where action potentials are produced. Thresholds and pattern of action potential discharge are not fixed but rather change in the presence of inflammatory mediators, thereby altering the sensitivity of the cough reflex. A discussion of several such ion channels and information regarding their function in airway sensory fibers is presented below. 

Workers will respond to risks not on the basis of their absolute disutility, as in an expected utility model, but in relation to more-or-less fixed standards. These standards therefore take on the function of social norms, patterns of judgment and behavior that, to an outside observer, may appear to refiect identical preferences on the part of each individual, but which, at least in this analysis, simply arise spontaneously in the process of rational collective action. In particular, these norms tend to be comparative rather than absolute, and they depend to some extent on perceptions of intent. The normative selection of risks to be regarded as actionable strengthens the bright line aspect of solutions to the assurance game, while the perception by workers that a risk is deliberately imposed on them by management increases the likelihood that it will be resisted. 

Surfaces of the limiting stressed states for steel specimens fixed in air using Sprut-5M, PN-1, as well as VAK and AK, are presented in Fig. 7.3. As is obvious, specimen strength increases with time. The kinetics of short-term adhesion strength change with time under the combined action and under the separate actions of normal fracture and shear breaking stresses shows similar patterns. Thus, the increase in the strength with Sprut-5M and PU stops in 24 x 10 h, with PN-1 in 6 X 10 h, and with VAK and AK in 8-12 x 10 h. In all the cases failure of specimens occurs by cohesion pattern. 

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