You think you have six senses huh?

Let’s talk a little about Ethology today. Ethology is the study of animal behaviour from a biological perspective. M.W. Fox is an animal behavioural researcher who specializes in turkeys. Not in cooking them, for God’s sake, but in studying them.

Turkey moms, as all moms, are extremely protective of their young. Fox found out something very interesting. Turkey moms identified their young more from the ‘cheep cheep’ sound they made rather than from its look, colour or smell. Fox wanted to check this out.

Turkey’s prime enemy is the polecat, an animal that resembles a mongoose. Turkey’s instant reaction to seeing a Polecat is killing it.

Fox fabricated a toy polecat and placed it near a turkey. As was expected, the turkey tore it to pieces. Next, Fox placed a small speaker inside the toy polecat that kept playing a noise - ‘cheep cheep’ - and pushed it near the turkey. Surprisingly, the turkey mistook the toy polecat as its young and took it under its care. Using a remote, Fox stopped the cheep cheep sound. As if on cue, the turkey tore the toy polecat to pieces.

Ethologists calls this ‘Fixed-action pattern’, an instinctive behavioural sequence that’s highly stereotyped and species-characteristic. It’s said to be produced by an innate releasing mechanism, a sort of hard-wired neural network, in response to a stimulus. Translated in plain English, animals perform a lot of activities without thinking. They instinctively react to certain stimulus and act on cue.

Aah, that’s coz animals have just five senses, you think. Hold that thought.

Let’s talk about us humans. We see a ‘SALE’ sign on an offline store or on an online site. And for a good measure, we see a headline ‘Cheap as never before’. What’s our instant reaction?

We don’t want to miss it. We want to shop. How many of us compare the pre-offer and post-offer prices? Our overriding concern is to make use of the sale and grab the offer. Our mind just assumes the word ‘Sale’ means cheap prices – irrespective of whether the prices are actually cheap or not.

The turkey hears cheep cheep and assumes its worst enemy is actually its young. We see the word ‘Sale’ and assume the prices are actually cheap cheap.

Tell me, how different are we from a turkey!