Need to develop a 1-2 Hour lab exercise that can demonstrate any of the followin

Question

Need to develop a 1-2 Hour lab exercise that can demonstrate any of the following topics:
Central Pattern generators, circadian rhythms, communication, conditional mating strategies, habitat preferences, honest signals, learning, mate choice, mechanisms of migration, mechanisms of navigation, optimal foraging theory, optimality theory and anti-predator behavior, stimulus flitering, territoriality, or any other interesting topic relation to animal behavior.

Please help.. I need some good experiment ideas. Thank you.

Explanation / Answer

Since your question asks for a lab experiment that can demonstrate any of these, I assume you don't need to demonstrate all of them. I'm also going to assume you intend for this to be an experiment with humans, not geckos or mole rats, etc.

So let's pick the easiest of the bunch to demonstrate:

1. Circadian rhythms
C.R. are behaviors which occur in a cyclic fashion in humans, most often mediated by light/dark input to the brain in a 24 hour cycle. In humans, the optic nerve synapses on the pineal gland (among other areas) to tell that part of the brain about the ambient intensity of light in the environment. The pineal gland produces melatonin, a key mediator of circadian rhythms, and neurons from the pineal gland synapse on several areas in the brain.

Knowing that, a useful 1-2 hr experiment could demonstrate the impact of circadian rhythms on behavior which is clearly dependent on time of day, such as appetite or alertness (you pick which ever you like). For example, you might tell a person to monitor the time he has lunch every day. Then bring that person into a windowless, clockless lab (with lights on) 2 hrs before lunchtime and let the individual go about his daily work. Afterwards ask whether he felt hungry during that time period. Conduct the same experiment with a person kept in a dimly lit/dark room for those two hours.

Ideally, a strong experimental design should have age/sex/height/weight matched sample groups with a control group (normal setting, no windowless lab) vs. experimental group (in the lab, setting manipulated).
If you prefer, a similar type of experiment can be conducted to demonstrate alertness when the individual doesn't know what time of day it is, such as being asked to take a nap in a dark lab and woken up after 1-2 hrs but told it's very late at night.

2. Conditional mating strategies & mate choice
These behaviors are VERY easy to observe among humans in any bar, club, Starbucks, or even a bookstore cafe. The trick is to bring such observations (such as how men react when a blonde in a short skirt and heels walks by vs. brunette in a long skirt and flats) into the lab setting. It's equally easy to do this with men and women, but key factors in mate choice for men include appearance and body shape vs. for women it's more about displays of dominance/confidence/power. Mating strategies for each sex are chosen with a conscious or unconscious awareness of the preferences of the 'target.'

One example experiment: bring men (again match sample groups) into a lab and allow them to rate 10 age-appropriate women by general appearance (don't show them faces, just 6-month old body/face outline pics). Then bring the men into a room to watch the same women through a one-way mirror. EXCEPT, now the 5 women rated least attractive (whom these men haven't identified since they didn't see faces) have lost weight or are dressed sexier or hair-styled, etc. vs. the 5 women rated most attractive are in sweatpants, dressed down, allowed to appear as though they've gained weight (e.g. baggy clothes) etc. See how the ratings change!

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