Animal cognition: Communication Flashcards
Why do animals communicate?
In the long term, in order to survive and reproduce. In the short term communication is important for alarms, food and mate attraction.
Cheney & Seyfarth were inspired by Struhsaker (1967) study into what?
Struhsaker observed alarm calls in Vervet monkeys in Kenya and found that 21 distinct calls. 3 of their major predators are leopards, eagles and snakes.
What did Cheney and Seyfarth find in their study on Vervet monkeys?
They found that monkeys can extract the meaning from signals and calls can be referential.
How is language defined according to Pearce (2008)?
- arbitrariness of units
- semanticity and displacement(communication about events distant in time or space)
- productivity( structured according to rules).
Gardner & Gardner tried to do what in their study?
They tried to teach chimp Washoe American Sign Language by shaping and instrumental conditioning. Limited evidence found.
Terrace et al 1979 did a similar study to Gardner & Gardner and found what?
Nim the chimp could produce 125 signs but couldn’t produce utterances( sentences).
Pilley & Reid (2011) study on Chaser the dog found that…
She learned >1000 nouns, associated nouns with commands and could pick out a new object.
Herman et al (1984) trained a dolphin to understand gestures and found that…
She got 81.4% on displaced reference tests(object-action).
52.4% on semantically reversible sentences showing some understanding of sentence comprehension. However no evidence of sentence production.
Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch (2002) derived two types of faculty of language. What are they?
Faculty of language in the broad sense (FLB)- cognitive, perception and motor abilities that contribute to language but aren’t unique to humans.
Faculty of language in the narrow sense (FLN)- ability unique to humans- recursion( ability to identify a pattern within a pattern).
