Habituation in Snails Matthew Ferguson

Habituation
In
Snails
Habituation in Snails Matthew Ferguson

Contents
Habituation in Snails Matthew Ferguson

Abstract
Habituation in Snails Matthew Ferguson

Introduction

Habituation is learning process exhibited by several different species. Although its

quite simple, its been suggested by Razran (1971) that habituation may be the basis
of all other forms of learning. The mechanisms of habituation are usually closely
regarded as akin to the mechanisms of learning.

An example of habituation is wearing a watch, if you were to put your watch on your
other arm it would feel strange and out of place, as it would if you took it off the arm
its on now. This is because your body has got used to it being on one arm and not the
other. If you were to leave the watch on the other arm for a few days then you would
forget about it.
This process is known as Habituation and can be summed up as when stimuli are
neither harmful nor helpful to any creature it will eventually be ignored.
A quick way of testing this is to gently touch a snails
tentacle, when touched it will withdraw sharply. If it is
touched repeatedly eventually the snail will see that this
is doing it no harm and not bother withdrawing its
tentacle as much.
Habituation is a phenomenon that is widespread across
the animal kingdom, it helps them survive by balancing
responses to either harmful stimuli or stimuli with
uncertain significance. For example a toad doesnt want
to catch inedible food, he will eventually learn what food is inedible and what food he
can eat through habituation.
Another example is the escape response of a guppy, if a shadow is put over the fish
then it will retreat, if this stimulus is presented every two minutes then eventually the
fish will not respond to shadows.
An effect of habituation is usually that a response that a habituated response will soon
reappear if stimuli is withheld for a long time, the guppy will start retreating again if
no shadows are shown for about a day.
However, habituation to the shadow the next day will occur quicker because the
animal has previously been habituated. This process is known as dishabitation.
No animal can afford to ignore potentially dangerous stimuli; the process of
habituation is a compromise between saving energy and the animal saving itself. In
relation, the snail will not be afraid after a while of no harmful stimuli but when the
stimulus is first presented the snail should cower in an attempt to preserve its own
life.

Humphrey (1933) studied the process of habituation, and he was one of the first. He
placed a number of snails on a glass plate; he would then give the plate a sharp jerk
that would cause the snails to react and to withdraw reflexively into their shells. After
each jerk, the number of snails that had withdrawn was counted, it was found that
after several trials the number showing withdrawal reflexes decreased and less and
less would withdraw into their shells.

Since Humphreys study a variety of techniques have

been used to study habituation. Such as Carew, Pinsker
and Kandel (1972) found repeated stimulation of the
aplysias siphon causes a reduction in the magnitude of
Habituation in Snails Matthew Ferguson

gill withdrawal and Groves and Thompson (1970) found that repeated stimulation of a
cats hind paw caused a reduction in the amount the cat flexed its leg, Boulis and
Sahley (1988) found that repeated stimulation to the abdomen of a leech caused a
reduction in the shortening reflex and Davis (1970) who tested rats by making them
listen to loud tones.
Habituation in Snails Matthew Ferguson

Hypothesis

As with all living creatures, if a stimulus is found to be non-harmful then the creature
will eventually stop worrying about it. In this case the snails will eventually learn not
to fear as the surface they are resting on s banged, as they find out it isnt harmful to
them in the least. This will not happen immediately as naturally creatures are wary but
should begin to take affect and stop snails reacting after about 5-10 hits.
Habituation in Snails Matthew Ferguson

Method

Research Design
Independent measures will be used for this experiment, as they are separate, different
snails being used.
Repeated measures would be useless as the snails would eventually learn to habituate
anyway and finding Matched Pairs within snails would be nearly impossible and
therefore impractical.

Research Method
A field experiment will be used for the snails; this is so that the snails dont act
differently by being in a different type of environment. Obviously it cannot be kept
exactly like their own environment and the snails will have been moved to get to the
experiment. However, damp grass and leaves will be put on the sheet of glass so the
snails feel less stressed.
A lab experiment wouldnt be appropriate as the lighting and the environment are too
artificial. An Observational study wouldnt be too useful as it would take a long time
and thus be rather impractical.

Sample
About thirty snails (so many snails makes sure of the results not just being a one off)
of similar sizes and species (brown garden snail, Helix aspersa) will be used. They
need to be of similar size and species as a younger or older snail may react different,
for example an old snail may not be as bothered by the sounds and vibrations of harsh
bangs against the surface and a young snail may be more alert. The same applies with
different species; they may act differently depending on this.

Controlled Variables
The surface and the leaves will always be kept damp no matter what to make the
snails feel less stressed, this will be controlled. Also the amount of stimulations will
be controlled to be about the same volume and force, and each snails trauma in
getting to the experiment will have to be minimal.

Measured Variables
The amount of snails that withdraw reflexively into their shell will be recorded each
time. This will be the general basis of the experiment and will hopefully give
confirmation that habituation does exist in snails.

Confounding Variables
There should be no confounding variables in this procedure as it is easier than
working with humans; snails are less complex beings, with no known cognition.

Internal Variables
It cant be told for certain how long a snail has lived for and what has happened to the
snail, perhaps a snail which is still healing from a cracked shell would be less likely to
retreat quickly, things like this are completely out of control.
Habituation in Snails Matthew Ferguson

Bias
The only bias possible in an experiment testing reflexes is experimenter bias, there
could be some ambiguity as to whether or not a snail did actually reflexively
withdraw or not.

Reliability
This experiment is relatively simple, and as a result there is no reason why it
shouldnt work. The results should show correlation with whats expected to happen
and it will be repeated a few times to make sure that it works properly.

Validity
This experiment has been done before by Humphrey (1933) so the procedure will just
be following his that was already proved valid, yet it was quite an old experiment so it
cant be trusted completely. Also, the presence of a human at the time of the
experiment may affect the snails and may make them react more. However, eventually
the experiment should still have the same effect.

Ethics
There are no ethical problems when dealing with invertebrates. The snails should
suffer no psychological harm and will be released straight back to the wild afterwards.
In this case the knowledge gained justifies the procedure, as the procedure should
cause no harm whatsoever. The experiment will not harm or stress the snails, they
arent social animals so they wont mind being caged for
a short period as long as the experiment takes and
common garden snails are not an endangered species,
they are actually an incredibly common species.
Habituation in Snails Matthew Ferguson

Results

Snails Reactions

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

No of Bangs No of Reactions

Surface Bangs No of snails reacting

1 15
2 15
3 15
4 15
5 13
6 14
7 12
8 13
9 13
10 12
11 12
12 11
13 14
14 11
15 10
16 12
17 9
18 8
19 8
20 7
21 6
22 7
23 8
24 7
25 6
26 6
27 5
28 5
29 5
30 5
Habituation in Snails Matthew Ferguson

Discussion

Findings show that eventually the snails will stop reacting to the banging of the
surface on which they are standing. This is the same as was predicted, although the
snails did not reacting as soon as was predicted in the hypothesis, only a couple more
would stop reacting after every bang.
Habituation in Snails Matthew Ferguson

References