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Primate Behaviour and Ecology > Communication and Cognition > Flashcards

Communication and Cognition Flashcards

1
Q

Behaviour =…

A

Behaviour must imply some kind of communication

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2
Q

What is behaviour? Marler (1950’s-1990’s)

A

The transmission of information from one animal to another, signaler to receiver.

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3
Q

What is behaviour? Dawkins and Krebs (1978, 1984)

A
  • Criticized this ‘classical ethological approach’ (1978)
  • Individuals not selected to inform receivers, but to influence their behaviour
  • Receiver responses also shaped by selected (1984)
  • Eventually conceded ‘information’ necessary
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4
Q

What is information?

A

-Claude shannon and information theory. Information is the resolution of uncertainty
-As applied to animal communication
Reduction in receivers’ uncertainty as a result of having received the signal

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5
Q

What is a signal?

A

Any act or structure that
-Affects the behaviour of other organisms
-Evolved because of those effects
-Which is effective because the effect had also evolved
Will only occur if signal carries information relevant to the receiver (Smith and Harper, 2003)

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6
Q

Signals

A

Evolved to alter receiver behaviour, as receiver evolved to respond, on average, responding to signal benefits recipient.

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7
Q

Cue

A

Act/structure is informative and effects receiver behaviour,

  • The act/structure didn’t evolve for this reason
  • But receiver responses evolved
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8
Q

Coercion

A

Act/structure affects receiver behaviour, but does not provide information

  • The act/structure DID evolve for this reason
  • But receiver response did not
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9
Q

Sensory Bias Exploitation

A

Senses have a bias to respond or not respond to certain signals

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10
Q

Signals vs Cues Vs Coercion

A

-Why provide cues or respond to coercive acts/structures if it’s costly?
Constraints and Disequilibrium
-Signals are equilibrium state

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11
Q

Ensuring Signal Reliability

1.

A

Index

  • cannot be faked
  • Signal form casually related to relevant information
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12
Q

Ensuring Signal Reliability

2.

A

Costly Signaling/Handicap

  • Too costly to fake
  • Production / Consequence
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13
Q

Ensuring Signal Reliability

3.

A

Common interest

-No benefit to faking

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14
Q

Deception

A
  • Not common
  • Signals must be honest on average
  • Deceivers can exploit this as long as: C deceived
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15
Q

Communicating identity

A

-Strength, status (both dominance and reproductive), age, sex, kin group etc

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16
Q

Communicating current or future behaviour

A

Copulate, fight, affiliate, initiate movement

17
Q

Communicating Environmental information

A

Food, predators and social environment, eg. Wild groups.

18
Q

Sensory modalities

A
  • Olfactory
  • Tactile
  • Visual
  • Auditory
19
Q

Receiver psychology (Guildford and Dawkins 1991)

A

Signals should use features that receiver brains find:

  • Eye catching
  • Easily discriminable
  • Memorable
20
Q

Olfactory Communication +

Jacobson’s organ

A

-Jacobson’s first stage of the olfactory system
-Well-developed in many mammals including strepsirrhines and many platyrrhines
-Greatly reduced in catarrhines
-Urine, faeces, glands.
Ring tailed lemurs stink fights

21
Q

Copulation calls

A
  • Common among female catarrhines, some NWM

- May incite male-male competition, confuse paternity and ensure, mate gaurding

22
Q

Vervet alarm calls

A

Different calls to indicate eagle predators so they hide in the bush, leopard alarm they get in a tree and snake alarm where they jump (Seyfarth et al, 1980)

23
Q

Functionally referential signals

A
  • Signals that function like human birds
  • Context-specific production
  • Receiver reactions consistent across contexts
  • Elicit mental representations of referent?
24
Q

Evolution of language

A
  • Evolved from primate vocal communication?
  • Language is vocal
  • Referential-like alarm calls
  • But limited flexibility, non-intentional
25
Q

Gestural communication

A

Socially learned

intentional

26
Q

Or is language based on..

A

Different cognitive mechanisms than primate than primate communication

27
Q

Encephalisation Quotient (EQ)

A

EQ= observed brain mass/expected for mammal of that body size.

28
Q

Brain subsystems

A

Cerebral cortex and Striatum
-Executive brain, planning and executions
Limbic systems, hypothalamus
-Emotional brain: sexual parental, aggression, hormones and drives
-Hippocampus
Spatial memory/ mental maps and foraging
-Visual System
Finding fruit, social group size

29
Q

What is Cognition?

Shettleworth 2010

A

‘The mechanisms by which animals acquire, process, store and act on information from the enviroment’

30
Q

Gaining Knowledge :

Conditioning

A

Associative:
pairing if neutral event with reinforcer
Classical
Instrumental (Trial and error)

31
Q

Gaining Knowledge :

Imitation

A

Cheap way of copying behaviour

32
Q

Gaining Knowledge :

Insight

A

Powerful, advanced, lacking in animals

33
Q

Imitation example

A

Macaca fuscata and the example of washing sweet potatoes, 1953. Juveniles learnt but old adults never did.

34
Q

Social learning

A 
Stimulus Enhancement
 - Directing attention to fraction of environment 
Response Facilitation
-Watching increases chances of doing 
Emulation 
-Copying results / goals not methods 
Imitation 
-Quick.
35
Q

Insight

A

Understanding how things work. Capuchin, peanut plastic tubes and pits.

36
Q

Selective pressures for large brains

A

Solving ecological problems
-Frugivory
-Extractive foraging
Some support for both, but neither can fully explain why primates generally have big brains.

37
Q

What do monkeys know?

A
  • Others identities
  • Own and others relationship
    • Status, friendship, kinship and aggression.

‘Don’t know they know this’
(Cherny, 1997)

38
Q

Theory of Mind

A
  • Reading minds or reading behaviour?
  • Difficult to rule out alternative explanations
  • Chimpanzees may have ToM but monkeys don’t.

Primate Behaviour and Ecology (4 decks)

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