Chapter 12: Comparative cognition

Question 1

Comparative cognition

Answer 1

studies of animal learning

theoretical constructs and models used to explain aspects of behaviour that cannot be readily characterized in terms of simple S-R mechanisms or reinforcer contingencies

Question 2

Human exceptionalism

Answer 2

the idea that humans are unique, distinctive beings that ought to be assigned fundamental moral value in accordance with that distinctiveness

Question 3

Anthropomorphism

Answer 3

The attributing of human characteristics and purposes to inanimate objects, animals, plants, or other natural phenomena, or to God.

Question 4

Morgan’s canon

Answer 4

parsimony

Question 5

Dawson 2004

Answer 5

see slides

Question 6

Contemporary animal cognition

Answer 6

test cognition w/ particular predicted behavioural outcome

explain behaviour that cannot be understood through simpler learning mechs.

does not rank organisms, difficult to determine “intelligence” or “consciousness”

Question 7

Food storing birds

Answer 7

• adaptation to survive predictable food shortages
• groups include: parids, corvids, sittids.
• neural specialization - hippocampus- is larger relative to their brain and body than non-storing birds

why is this feat of memory important?

1. memories formed during single, brief visits
2. larger # of items must be remembered
   - 10 000 to 100 000 items per year
3. info retained over long periods of time (clark’s nutcrackers remember locations for over 285 days)

Question 8

Kamil and Balda (1985)

Clark’s Nutcrackers

Answer 8

• forced nutcrackers to cache in only 10 of 180 spots
• after retention interval (10 days) birds allowed to search
• birds performed above chance
  
  • can’t be due to marked sites, preference for location type or due to olfaction

Question 9

Episodic memory

Answer 9

memory for specific events or episode

• what, where, and when
• must be integrated (use all 3 Ws)

Question 10

Clayton & Dickinson (1999)

Scrub jay

Answer 10

Scrub jay catching worms w/ distinct cues on tray

• replenish and a degrade condition
• both groups search for worms more than peanuts after 4 hours
• replenish group searched more for worms than peanuts after 124 hours
• degrade group searched for peanuts more than worms after 124 hours
• birds remember WHAT they cached, WHERE they cached it and WHEN they cached it

Question 11

Numerosity in animals

Answer 11

approximate number system (ANS) in nonhuman animals and human children (and adults)

“which is more?”

Question 12

Mumerical magnitude production

Answer 12

rats trained on diff FR schedules, but half of the time there is no reinforcement
- produce approx values (more error for larger numbers)

Question 13

interval timing

Answer 13

timing short durations (think FIs)
universal, automatic

peak procedure (duration production)
- deliver food after FI
      - stimulus 1 -> FI 20 s -> food
        stimulus 2 -> FI 40 s -> food
       on some trials, present no food - stimulus stays on 

peak procedure:

• 40 s curve is 2x the 20 sec curve
• also 2x as wide
• scalar invariance - responding according to relative, rather than absolute properties

Question 14

phow interval timing develops

Answer 14

• early on: peck arbitrarily
• slowly: responding scallops before 60s
• later: post FI responding extinguishes

Question 15

models of timing

Answer 15

• scalar expectancy theory
• behavioural theory of timing
• oscillators

Question 16

scalar expectancy theory

Answer 16

internal clock accumulates in working memory; compared to reference memory

Question 17

behavioural theory of timing

Answer 17

animals track their own behaviours over time to judge duration

Question 18

oscillators

Answer 18

neurons set at particular times

Question 19

serial order performance

Answer 19

learning to respond to a set of stimuli in a specified order
serial order performance can be achieved by learning a series pf S-R or S-S associations or by forming a mental representation of the order of the stimuli

Question 20

Representation of order

Answer 20

when presented with novel orders, humans and monkeys take longer to “figure out” the order if it starts with a later stimulus

Question 21

Categorization and concept learning

Answer 21

category perception: how we call all ducks a duck

- stimulus equivalence training

Question 22

Acquisition performance: true vs. pseudo category

Answer 22

true group: discriminated BBC from MOCH

pseudo group: discriminated by rote

Question 23

Perceptual concepts

Answer 23

pigeons trained to discriminate b/w pics with person vs. w/o

Question 24

abstract concepts

Answer 24

• discriminating “faster than,” “bigger than,” or simply “same as”
• i.e. abstract relationships bw stimuli (rather than static qualities)

Question 25

tool use

Answer 25

tool: physical object used to obtain a goal

Question 26

language

Answer 26

not just communication 
symbolic meaning 
semantic menaing 
grammer, syntax 
critical period

Question 27

lexigrams

Answer 27

• non-human apes do not have laryngeal apparatus for speech
• visual shapes approximating words
• kanzi learned w/o explicit instruction

Question 28

is protolanguage really a language?

Answer 28

• difficulties w/ grammer (Nim, recent kanzi evidence)
• difficult to analyze
• problems with definitions
• preditions: no evidence for lexical priming
• recursion: no evidence for complex sentences
• songbird vocal leanring is closest ecological creative to human language learning

Question 29

self awareness

Answer 29

mirror test

metacognition