Cog And Bio Comparative Cognition Flashcards
What is the evolution of thought?
Animals learn from outcome
What animal is very clever, has evolved nervous system and complex behaviour independently of the vertebrates (convergent evolution)?
Octopus
What is convergent evolution?
When natural selection comes up with the same idea more than once
E.g wings in bats, intelligence in octopuses crows & apes
What are analogous traits?
Similar traits that 2 animals share as a result of convergent evolution
What are homologous traits?
Similar traits that 2 animals share as a result of being related (inherited from common ancestor)
What is comparative psychology / comparative cognition?
The study of thought in other animals
What do behaviourists believe about animals nowadays?
Stimulus - representation - response
What does Lloyd Morgan believe about animal behaviour?
It should be interpreted in terms of lower processes
Who is Pavlov?
Discoverer of classical conditioning
What did skinner say?
The problem is whether people think - radical behaviourist
What did Lorenz do?
Demonstrated imprinting mechanism in geese
What did Harlow believe?
Attachment in innate, not a product of reinforcement
What did terrace believe?
Humans only can learn a proper language, no matter how hard you try to teach an animal
What does anthropomorphism mean?
Judging animals by human values
What does anthropomorphism mean?
The attribution of human traits, emotions and intentions to animals
What are the great apes - 5
Orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, us
How much % of body weight is the brain?
2%
Up to ?% of calorific expenditure is the brain?
20%
What is the social hypothesis?
Social complexity & Machiavellian intelligence has an impact on reproduction
As brain size increases, what else increases?
Group size
Human group size as predicted by Dunbar’s model comes out to about?
150
What is dunbar’s number?
150
Dunbar’s number is typical of what!
Typical size of a hunger-gatherer society
Dunbar’s number is the estimated population of what?
Neolithic farming village, based on archaeological remains
Dunbar’s number is the size of the basic what?
Basic military unit size from the Roman Empire
Dunbar’s number is facebook’s … ?
Facebooks social clique size
Understanding gaze is?
Anecdotal
What is tactical deception?
Scientists taking the intentional stance
What is the intentional stance? (Daniel Dennett)
Describing something in terms of mental activities in order to successfully predict its behaviour
What does social learning underlie?
Culture
Social learning is…?
Is the co-operative rather than competitive face of social cognition
What is contagion?
When an action in an animal’s repertoire is automatically released by seeing a peer perform it
What is stimulus enhancement?
Social processes make a stimulus salient but appropriate actions on it are learned by trial and error, so no imitation proper
What is imitation?
Subject copies the form of a novel sequence of actions - most great apes show imitation according to the two action task
What is goal emulation?
Subject infers model’s goals and customises its own actions, removing model’s idiosyncrasies and replacing with its own
