Ch. 13 Flashcards
Comparative cognition
Is the study of information processing across a variety of species, including humans.
term comparative refers to the practice of comparing such abilities across species to determine whether their skills are similar or different.
This area is sometimes also called “cognitive behaviorism” or “animal cognition,” but many researchers prefer the term comparative cognition because it recognizes that comparison is key to understanding a species’ abilities.
It also acknowledges that even when we study the cognitive abilities of just one species, we are often comparing that species to our own.
Within comparative psychology, Tinbergen ‘s “four questions” or “four levels of analysis”
are traditionally used to categorize research findings.
first two guestions deal with the ultimate cause of a trait, which refers to the reasons for why that trait evolved within a species,
while the last two questions deal with the proximate cause of a trait, which refers to the more immediate causes for the expression of that trait in an individual (“proximate” means nearer or more immediate).
Tinbergen’s four questions
Ultimate Cause (relating to the evolution of a trait within a species):
- What purpose does this trait serve for survival or reproduction?
- How is this trait distributed across species?
Proximate Cause (relating to the expression of the trait within an individual).
- What biological and environmental events lead to the expression of this trait in an individual?
- How does this trait emerge or change during an individual’s development?
biophilia hypothesis
which is that humans have an inherited predisposition to be drawn to nature, including other animals (biophilia means “love of nature”).
Simple curiosity by itself may also play a role in the interest humans have in the abilities of other species.
delayed matching-to-sample
the animal is first shown a sample stimulus and then, following a delay, is required to select that stimulus out of a set of alternative stimuli.
The extent to which the animal is able to select the correct stimulus is regarded as an indicator of its ability to remember that stimulus.
Memory is often a matter of
stimulus discrimination in which one is first exposed to a stimulus and is then required to respond to that stimulus at a later time.
directed forgetting
a directed forgetting task, the pigeon is shown a cue during the delay period, which signals whether the stimulus should be remembered or forgotten.
On directed forgetting tasks, pigeons are less likely to select the correct stimulus following exposure to the forget cue.
When comparing Clark’s nutcrackers to other corvids, ____
In a test comparing chickadees to juncos,
____
- the nutcracker has better spatial memory, which is important for food storing.
- it was found that chickadees, who store food, pay more attention to the location of an item.
The hippocampus is an area of the brain that is important for spatial memory, and food-storing birds tend to have greater volume in this area.
numerosity
which is an understanding of quantity.
The case of Clever Hans reminds us that it is often important to have testers who are ___ the conditions or expectations of the test.
Koehler used a direct ___ task in order to determine whether parrots could match cards with different numbers of items on them.
Results from Koehler’s studies indicate that some birds can distinguish ___ from ___ or ___.
Using a bucket with a false bottom, researchers have determined that human infants will ___ to search if three items were placed in the bucket but only two items can be seen.
Using the same bucket task, lemurs seem to track differences between placed versus found items based on ___
A variety of species are capable of distinguishing between ___ number
- blind to
- matching-to-sample
- quantity
- Volume
- Size
- Continue
- proportion
- small
Monty Hall problem
Asked to choose between three doors. Behind each door is a prize. One prize is valuable, whereas the other two are far less valuable.
After the choice has been made, the host opens not the chosen door, but one of the unchosen doors to reveal a worthless prize behind it.
The contestant then has the option of A) sticking with the original choice or B) switching to the other remaining door.
If you are like most people, you would probably stay with your original choice. You would perceive that you started with a 1/3 probability of choosing correctly (one of the three doors has a valuable prize behind it).
Now that one door has been removed. the probability that you chose correctly has increased to 1/2. Thus, you may as well stay with your original choice.
Another way of looking at it is that between the two remaining doors, there is now a 50% chance that you have chosen the valuable prize.
So, whether you switch or don’t switch, the probability will remain the same.
Well, it turns out that most people are wrong!
there is a higher probability of winning if you switch after one of the doors has been eliminated! The reason is as follows
When you start out, there is a 1/3 probability that you chose correctly and 2/3 probability that you chose incorrectly.
The 2/3 probability of being wrong does not change when one of the options is removed.
So 2/3 of the time, sticking with your original choice will result in a loss.
On top of this, because of the one-third trials where our choice to stay turns out to be correct, we may use this as evidence that our non-switching strategy is correct.
In a sense, we are intermittently reinforced for non-switching, with instances of success being more salient than instances of failure.
From a cognitive perspective, this is known as confirmation bias,
“classical probability”
by looking at the problem and trying to calculate the likelihood that the prize is behind a given door.
Thus, humans look ahead and attempt to rationally (if incorrectly) predict the probability of a certain outcome given the alternatives available. Most of the time, that would be a good strategy, but not in situations like this, in which the outcome is tricky.
why don’t human subjects learn to override this tendency when they are given repeated experiences with the task. It appears that humans have a strong bias toward trying to predict certain types of outcomes and basing their behavior on that prediction.
It should be noted that children outperform adults on this task, so this appears to be a bias that develops as one grows older
“empirical probability,”
in which choices are made based on prior experience with a task.
Pigeons, however, appear to use
“empirical probability,”
(It is as though they are asking themselves, what happened the last 10 times that I stayed versus the last 10 times that I switched?)
Thus, while clever humans are trying to reason things out, independent of their experience, the pigeons are simply reacting on the basis of their experience.
And in the same way that rule-governed learning is sometimes inferior to learning based on the actual contingencies of reinforcement, statistical reasoning is sometimes inferior
Herrnstein’s study
Herrnstein (1979) trained pigeons to peck at pictures of trees, and not at non-trees. This is a discrimination training procedure.
Herrnstein’s study revealed that pigeons could generalize their discrimination to novel pictures of trees, which suggests that they had learned the category of tree.
transitive inference
a form of reasoning in which the relationship between two objects can be inferred by knowing the relationship of each to a third object.
Humans seem particularly good at this type of reasoning. Other species may also be capable of this type of reasoning, but it seems to depend on the type of socIal structure that exists for the species
Ajay is taller than Noor, and Noor is taller than Jeff. If you know that Ajay is taller than Jeff, then you have successfully made a transitive in inference. Species of lemurs with rigid social hierarchies are more skilled at this task than the less social species.
Tool use
Tool use by a species is evidence of understanding relationships between objects and their effect
The simplest form of tool is a(n) existing stick or a rock.
Buzzards and vultures show some preference for the weight of rocks they use to crack open eggs.
This is evidence of more cognitive complexity than simple tool use.
Saving a tool for later use
- is common among primates; it has sometimes been documented among other animals.
Chimps have also shown the ability to both create and modify tools.
It appears that chimps learn to crack nuts through a long, gradual process of
social learning
In order for tool use to start, researchers have speculated that there may be some form of insight involved when an item is used in a new way for the first time.
Theory of mind
is the tendency to attribute mental states to other individuals.
This means thinking of oneself as separate from others and recognizing that the content of another’s mind is different from one’s own.
If you have a theory of mind, then you can understand that someone else has information you don’t (so you can ask questions of them), or that someone lacks information that you have (so you can conceal or share that information).
self-awareness
the ability to perceive oneself as separate from others.
Self awareness
The mark and mirror task is a classic test of self awareness that has been used with a variety of species including humans
Aside from primates, other species that show evidence of self-awareness include
dolphins, horses, elephants, and magpies.
There is considerable variability within a species for many high-level cognitive abilities.
This means that not all individuals within a species will show evidence of such abilities.
False belief task
The false belief task is used to determine whether a child can use information correctly to infer what someone else would know.
Julie knows that someone placed Billy’s teddy bear in a box, but Billy doesn’t know.
When asked where Billy would look, Julie says he will look in the box. Julie is likely younger than four years of age.
Hidden van ads experiment
Using the “hidden banana” task, it has been demonstrated that subordinate chimps can use information about what dominant chimps know to make safe decisions in a competitive task.
Intentional cooperation or deception requires ___ __ __
In the rope task, two animals must ___ by
pulling at the same time in order to get food.
Bonobos are ___ successful in cooperative tasks than chimps, which is likely related to bonobos being ___ competitive over food.
Chimps can learn to point toward an empty container when interacting with an ___ trainer. This is evidence that chimps are ___ of deception.
- Theory of mind
- Cooperate
- More
- Less
- uncooperative
- capable
There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence of chimpanzees providing misinformation, but further controlled testing: is necessary to determine whether this behavior represents intelligence.
Communication
is the process of sending and receiving a signal of some sort.
Communication signals are often species-specific.
language
is a special category of communication that has some key features, symbols, syntax, and semantics that distinguish it from other forms of communication
able to intentionally provide you with specific information that you can use.
symbol
is a cue that is used to represent an experience or object that you can then share with someone else.
Symbols In human language, we use discrete units of meaning to communicate with one another.
Those units may be spoken words, specific gestures (as in sign language), an image, or written words.
important aspect of language
reference
ability to associate arbitrary symbols with objects or events.
important characteristic of symbols used in language.
like e-mail that didn’t exist before the late twentieth century. Similarly, the word Web has been modified to refer not only to a structure made by spiders, but also to the Internet.
syntax
the system of grammatical rules by which symbols are arranged.
Understanding these rules, and using them to combine symbols, allows us to have an unlimited ability to communicate about things and ideas.
important aspect of language
semantics
Is the meaning associated with symbols.
It is this meaning that allows us to refer to things that aren’t currently visible or tangible.
If you change the word happy to unhappy in a sentence, you have altered the semantic content of the sentence.
The alarm calls of vervet monkeys,
Vary according to predator, provide evidence that they are capable of reference
Early attempts to teach chimpanzees to speak ____ because chimps ____ the verbal apparatus to produce speech.
Later studies examined whether chimpanzees could learn a symbolic, gestural language called ___ __ ___
In ____ experiments, apes are raised in
human environments.
Researchers found that ___ was the easiest way to teach sign language to the chimpanzees.
They also found that ___, which involves physically placing the ape’s hands in the correct position, was an effective method of teaching.
Rewarding correct signs with food tended to produce ___ -type behavior that provided ___ evidence of actually communicating with the researchers.
Almost all apes that have been trained in ASL can demonstrate ____
- Did not succeed
- do not have
- American Sign Language
- cross fostering
- modeling
- molding
- automatic
- little
- reference
Studies of animals’ ability to use symbolic languages created by researchers in a laboratory setting are known as ___ language experiments.
These studies allowed researchers to systematically assess the language abilities of more chimpanzees in a ___
controlled setting than was the case with the sign language cross-fostering studies.
One of the first artificial languages created was called ___
Results of the artificial language experiments strongly suggest that many of the chimpanzees mastered ___ but there is less evidence that they mastered ___
- artificial
- more
- Yerkish
- reference
- grammar
Dolphins, gorillas, and parrots are all ___
species that have relatively ___ brains, which makes them good candidates for studying language acquisition.
Dolphins have been taught to communicate acoustically as well as gesturally, which is evidence that they may be able to use ___ language.
BALL FETCH BASKET means the opposite of BASKET FETCH BALL to language-trained dolphins. This suggests that, unlike many of the language-trained chimps, these dolphins can understand the ___ rules of a language.
- social
- complex
- symbolic
- grammatical
