Animal Communication/Human Language Origin Flashcards
who was the first person to compare human nervous system to animal nervous system
darwin
natural selection
animals will keep and pass down traits that pose as an advantage
fitness
animal with advantage traits will pass them down to next generation; find a mate and reproduce successfully
survival adaptation
giraffe can reach for food at higher elevations when there might not be food at lower levels
reproduction adaptation
makes them attractive to mate
- pretty colours
ethology
study of animal behaviour and communication
reasons why animals communicate
- food - alter others of food source
- friend and foe
- finding a mate
- marking territory
different ways communication can be expressed
- visual display - mate attraction via colours
- vocal display - song birds sing to attract mates
- motor display - honey bees
how do honey bees communicate
they communcate spatial knowledge to other bees through the waggle dance
what is the waggle dance
the bees dance to give two pieces of information
- the direction relative to the sun and the distance
rote learning
memorization by repetition
- can imagine a use for the stick and alters structure of it
rule learning
aquire knowledge of a fixed standard that defines a category
- if you learn one rule, you can take basic rule and apply it across situations over time
bowerbird
build a bower where the female stands to watch the male performance
what makes a bower bird attractive/better mate
- high quality bower
- lots of blue colour in the bird and from other objects the bower bird can find to decorate the bower
birdsong
they learn one specific song when they are young and continue to sing it throughout their life
memorization phase (zebra finch birdsong)
early phase after they are born and they hear the song from dad and remember it
sensorimotor phase (zebra finch birdsong)
undergo the exact motor movements to produce the song
- aka babbelling phase in human babies
subsong
experimenting with sounds of language but not quite there yet
crystallized song
when the song sounds the way it should and it becomes a permanent song
brains of songbirds vs non-songbirds
- males regions of the brain for singing are more developed because they are the ones doing the singing
- the brain region is more developed during spring time because it is mating season and they do lots of singing
similarities and differences of vocal learning in songbirds vs humans
similarities:
- tutor
- refinement through experience
differences:
- vocal repitoire
- no difference in brain regions from male to female
- purpose: songbirds attract mates, humans have many different reasons for vocalization
vocal mimicry
parrots
- make lots of different calls
- greater vocal repetition than compared to songbirds
fork-tailed drongos
- hangs around other birds to mimic their alarm calls (can cause other animals to scurry away so these birds can swoop in and steal food)
- truth and lie in calls they make
what communication do bats use to find food
they use echolocation - ultra high frequency chirps that bounce back off moth
- emit more signals the closer it gets to the moth
startle hypothesis
clicks disorient the bat; Bat hears and the insect confuses the bat which allows the insect to escape
range interference
confuses the bat so the bas doesn’t know exact location of moth
phantom echo hypothesis
distracts the bat into thinking it should og chase one of the echos so the moth can escape
what are the sounds elephants make
- trumpet - high freq
-rumble - low freq
whale song
- produced by males travelling alone
- phrases - smallest units
- theme - made up of phrases
- song - made up of themes
cultural transmission of whale song
male whales can change their song from other whales in the area
cooperative feeding in dolphins
signal to other dolphins where the food source is so that the next time the other dolphin can signal where the food is
prey response in dolphins
call that disrupts the fish they prey upon making them easier to catch
how does dolphin ecolocation work?
clicks are produced by phonic lips and redirected by the melon
Viki the chimpanzee
early attempt to teach chimp to speak but she couldn’t
how has the vocal tract changed with evolution
moved down in the throat
washoe
ape that learned sign language, couldn’t make sentences
koko
also learned sign language but was immersed in it from birth
kanzi
- first ape to understand spoken english
- identify symbols using a lexigram
specific characteristics of animal communicaiton
- only know so many alarm calls
- holophrases
- limited combining of symbols and sounds
- lack of displacement - communicating something happening right now
continuity theory (theory of language development)
individual words to something with more grammar then full sentences
discontinuity theory (theory of language development)
happened quick; creature who came along already had the vocal tract and could communicate in a sophisticated way so language developed in a generation or 2
pidgin language
- 1 or 2 word combinations
- used for identification and alarm calls
creole language
consistent grammer/rules
properties of sophisticated language
- symbolic - individual sounds (phonemes)
- generative - from the unlimited sounds, we can have unlimited words
- structured - grammar rules
