Comp 4 Flashcards
What is cognition
It is knowing. Traditionally refered to as a process like learning, perception, memory, thinking and judegement.
Do animals have understanding of concepts
We can train animals to appear to have concpets, but we have to be sure of any conditioning that has taken place.
We can add in new stimuli to reduce any associations animals make - chimps and corvids have passed this test.
Allospecific acquisitions have been identified in Alex the parrot. He categorised novel stimuli based on judging the same or different (Pepperberg, 1987, 2002). His training program involved one trainer, himself and one potential competitor - the model (trainer) is to learn, and competitor (rival) is to pay more attention.
Referntial, functional and social input allows parrots to acquire cognitive/communicative skills more effectively (Pepperberg, 1999).
Discuss primates ability to understand concepts
Nonhuman primates can also discriminate between numbers and quantities. Estimate quantities correctly without training (Allison et al., 2013) found olive baboons selected cups with the most peanuts in them.
We can understand this through the importance of cognition for foraging. Withing foraging congition, cognitive skills for dealing with the physical world have most likely emerged (Tomasello & Call, 1997). It makes sense for an individual to forage in a tree where there is more fruits. So they must be able to identify these trees. Also from memory-based foraging, as an individual must remember where they burried their food for a later time.
What is foraging cogition
Withing foraging congition, cognitive skills for dealing with the physical world have most likely emerged (Tomasello & Call, 1997). It makes sense for an individual to forage in a tree where there is more fruits. So they must be able to identify these trees.
What is memory-based foraging
Object permanence is the ability to remember the existence of specific objects even when it is concealed. This starts as early as 8 months in humans and chimpanzees (Poi & Spinozzi, 1994).
We can test this through the visible displacement task: individuals detect a concealed displaye object when the concealment is visible. This has been found in primates, birds, marine mammals and pets.
We can also test this through the invisible displacement task: Individuals detect a concealde displayed object when the concealment is not visible. This is found in primates and some pets.
Discuss early ape and human development
Poi & Spinozzi (1994) had 4 human reared chimpanzees. They found similairites in four sensorimotor stages: reflexes - sucks, visually following moving objects; mouthing, increaing hand coordination; efficient reading and visually following quickly moving objects; and object permanence.
Differences included for example, human infants combine objects to modify each other more often that chimps do.
Discuss the broaden and build theory for positive emotions
We need to treat positive and negative emotions differently and apply different theoretical models for them (Fredrickson, 2003).
Positive emotions: the theory focuses on how positive emotions help solve problems regarding personal growth and development. She proposed that positive emotions help broaden an individuals momentary mindset and by doing so help to build enduring personal resources such as physical, social, intellectual and psychological.
These are likely to imporve successful coping and survival strategies which can be drawn on later.
Compare research on ape and human cognition
Tomasello & Herrmann (2010) found similarities in understanding both the physical world (foraging) and social world (competition). But humans have a unique set of social-cognitive skills and motivations for collaborations, social learning and sharing cultural information.
Richardson & Boyd (2005) found humans have evolved a highly flexible set of social-cognitive skills, we develop with others within our group and cope with new challenges.
Moll & Tomasello (2007) identified the Vygotskian intelligence hypothesis, whereby primate cognition was driven mainly by competition, but human-unique cognition was driven by cooperation. BUT this does not mean that nonhuman species cannot cooperate - many species, such as linos cooperate during hunting.
Discuss understanding complex cooperation
Plotnik et al., 2011 found elephants show complex cooperation and pulle ropes together in order to get food, and they seemed to understand it - if one is alone, they will wait for another because if they pull on their own they don’t get food.
Voelter et al., 2015 found flexibility in oragnutan social tool use.
Can non human animals self-recognise
We can test this through mirror mark tests - to determine whether individuals can recognise their own reflection as an image of the self in a mirror. If they adjust their body to better see the marking (on themselves) in the mirror, and poking at the marking while viewing the mirror.
Different species passed it, including elephants, dolphins, apes and human infants (Nielson & Dissanayake, 2004). This can tell use that they may have the ability to empathise (Gallup, 1998), but Povinelli (1994) said passing the test does not equal an understanding of the own internal psychological states distinct from those of others, but can recognise their behvaiour.
Povinelli et al., (1996) found when 2 & 3 year olds were tested, many of the younger children responded as if the person was someone else, when seeing themselves in viedos that were taken only 3 minutes before.
What are the main components of speech
Prosody is how, the meoldy. Suntax is when and where, the grammar, Chomski identified universal grammar, a common set of rules and characteristics that are pre wired. Semantics are the what, and meaning.
Some animals have learnt the human language, and understand semantic cues and can use symbols to communicate with humans. But language-trained animals are limited in communicating in more complex forms, with multiple signs (Terrace et al., 1979).
Discuss the cross-fostering and ape language research
After the Kelloggs work, it has been found that humans have vocal and motor control, so can produce language at any time voluntarily. Humans larynx position is much lower and highly flexible. And humans have better breathing control, essential for vocal flow.
Viki the chimp was only able to produce a limited amount of vocabulary, such a mama, papa, up and cup. But Terrace et al. (1979) suggested Washoe (the chimp) only imitated the multi-sign utterances from the Gardners (his adopted parents), as he was able to communicate using sign language.
Kanzi (a bonobo) was far more impressive, with lingustic abilites than any previously trained apes. He grew up in this enviornment, and was not trained at the begining. He seems to have understood words at 2 years of age before he started to spontanesouly use the lexigram he was taught, at 2 and a half years old. His english comprehension skills at 8 yers old were found to be similar to a 2 year old human infant. One key difference in engagement in the conversation was Alia (the human infant) added verbal comments during the tests they both had.
Summarise this cognition and language lecture
Human and non human animals share a wide range of cognitive skills, especially in the physical world and competition. However, differences are clear within non-competitive social world and cooperation. Comparative psychologists have examined to which extent components of human communication might be shared across species by training them in language and studying their species-specific communicaiton.
