Comparative Flashcards
Give 2 features of same method/task comparisons.
They are suitable for closely related species and species-specific adaptations make its applicability difficult.
Give 2 features of different method/task comparisons.
They have greater phylogenic applicability but low comparability.
Give 3 features of functionally equivalent method/task comparisons.
There are problems in dining functionally equivalent tasks, they have greater phylogenic applicability and allow test batteries on particular topics.
Give an advantage and a disadvantage of using functionally equivalent ages in comparisons.
Advantage: Adapted to the species being compared.
Disadvantage: Rules of thumb are not always right.
Give the 4 key words in Tinbergen’s four questions.
Mechanism, function, phylogeny and ontogeny.
An animal’s key function is to (______), through (genetic/endocrinological) control.
Survive and reproduce, genetic.
An animal’s key mechanism is to (______), through (genetic/endocrinological) control.
Seek pleasure and avoid pain, endrocinological.
Describe fission-fusion groups.
They vary in spatial cohesion and individual membership in subgroups, and groups are rarely all together.
On inhibitory control tasks, what is sometimes a better predictor of performance than phylogeny?
Sociality.
What 3 characteristics do polygamous males usually have, in comparison to monogamous males and females?
Larger home range, better spatial abilities and larger hippocampal volume.
What 2 characteristics do food storing birds usually have, in comparison to non-food storing birds?
Better spatial abilities and larger hippocampal volume.
What 3 characteristics do females which carry out brood parasitism usually have, in comparison to males?
Can keep track of multiple nest sites, better spatial abilities and larger hippocampal volume.
Which timing style allows animals to use short arbitrary durations to perform actions for specific periods, etc.?
Interval timing.
Which timing style allows animals to use short the tidal cycle, the light-dark cycle or seasons to keep time?
Circadian rhythms.
Define circadian rhythms.
Endogenous timing mechanisms that predict changes in the environment and synchronise physiology and behaviour accordingly.
Describe cropping.
Visiting food sources at or close to the moment of replenishment.
Define navigation.
An animal’s ability to male it’s way to a desired location.
Define homing.
The specific use of navigation to return home.
Define migration.
Seasonal movement of animals from one region to another.
Define path integration.
The ability to directly return to a starting point after visiting several locations without the aid of external cues.
What input signals do invertebrates use in path integration?
Number of steps and optic flow.
What input signals do vertebrates use in path integration?
Vestibular system, optic flow, proprioception and motor commands.
Define compasses.
The ability to use planetary and/or exo-planetary cues to efficiently move from one location to another.
Define landmarks.
An object or gradient in the environment that aids an individual to a navigate to a particular location.
Give 2 types of beacon landmarks.
Odour and social.
Give 3 types of en route landmarks.
Serial beaconing, landmarks bearings and following a landmark.
Give 3 types of position fixing landmarks.
View matching, vectors and relative distance.
In a rectangular room with food in one corner, why do rats and toddlers go to the diagonal opposite corner?
They use geometric cues in navigation.
Give 3 factors that could help adult humans overcome the geometric module of navigation.
Executive function, hippocampal development and experience.
Describe the bi-coordinate map.
Direction from one point.
Describe the mosaic map.
Direction from multiple points.
Describe the network map.
All known routes between locations.
Describe the Euclidean cognitive map.
Distance and direction from all known sites.
Which method of planning and inference helps animals travel efficiently between locations.
Least distance strategies.
Which method of planning and inference helps animals travel efficiently to new locations.
Detours and shortcuts.
Define adaptive specialisations.
Traits that are tailored to the current ecological niche occupied by a species.
Give 2 morphological specialisations New Caledonian Crows have for tool use.
Beak shape and forward vision.
What is the term for when an organism’s adaptations mean it can succeed in more than own niche?
Flexibility.
Define trial-and-error problem solving.
The gradual acquisition of a new response following a series of unsystematic and varied attempts.
Define insight in problem solving.
“The sudden production of a new adaptive response not arrived at by trial behaviour, but by the sudden adaptive reorganisation of experience.”
Define reasoning in problem solving.
Coming perceived with imagines events or associating spatio-temporally separate events.
Define planning.
“The cognitive process implicated in the formulation, evaluation and selection of a sequence of thoughts and/or actions to achieve a desired goal.”
What process is associated with the mid-dorsolateral frontal cortex and interrupted by injury of the cortico-striatal pathway?
Planning.
Define innovation.
“The invention of a new behaviour pattern or modification of a previously learned one in a novel context.”
In Reader and Laland’s (2002) study, how did executive brain ratio affect innovation and social learning.
Increased executive brain ratio increased both.
Describe the life-dinner principle.
For predators, only dinner is stake, but for prey life is at stake.
Describe genetic preference/predisposition in prey selection.
Preference for a particular type of prey.
Describe individual learning in prey selection.
Sampling new items.
Describe social learning in prey selection.
Learning to eat what others eat.
Give an example of an animal that can see infrared.
Snakes.
Give an example of an animal that can see ultraviolet.
Bees.
Define Umwelt.
“The perceptual world in which an organism exists and acts as a subject.”
What is the principle of proper mass?
Larger cortical sensory regions are associate with enhanced discriminative abilities.
Give 3 methods of prey capture.
Anatomical, tool-assisted and cooperative.
Give 4 examples of primary anti-predatory tactics?
Immobilisation, camouflage, mimicry and alarm calling.
Give 4 examples of secondary anti-predatory tactics?
Immobilisation (faking death), flight, chemical defence (toxin sequestering) and attack (mobbing).
Describe and give the other name for the Garcia effect?
Taste aversion: “A form of classical conditioning where a particular taste is associated with nausea, sickness and/or vomiting.”
Give 2 benefits of acute stress.
Benefit mobilisation and fight-or-flight response.
Give 4 disadvantages of chronic stress.
Reproductive suppression, depressed immune response, arrested and eventual premature death.
Briefly define a social interaction.
A behavioural exchange between 2 or more individuals.
Briefly define a social relationship.
The sum of social interactions over a period of time.
Briefly define a social structure.
The network of existing relationships in a social group.
Define altruism.
A behaviour that reduces the actor’s fitness while increasing another’s.
Define kin selection.
The evolutionary strategy that favours the reproductive success of an organism’s relatives (even at personal reproduction and survival cost).
Which type of fitness is the genetic contribution of an individual to the next generation’s gene pool.
Darwinian.
Which type of fitness is the survival and reproductive success of kin, being valued by the probability of shared genetic information?
Inclusive.
Describe eusocial species.
Cooperative brood care, multiple generations of adults and division of (reproductive and non-reproductive) labour.
Define reciprocal altruism.
An evolutionary strategy that favours the reproductive success of an organism by receiving payback for the services offered at an earlier time.
Which style of reciprocity is based on a tally of exchanges, high cognitive burden and considers multiple exchanges?
Calculated.
Which style of reciprocity is based on relationship quality, low cognitive burden and considers the most recent exchange?
Attitudinal.
Describe the social brain hypothesis of sociality.
Group size and % neocortex positively correlate, in order to keep track of social relations.
Describe sequential tool use and give 2 examples of animals that can use it.
Using tools to obtain other tools - birds (rooks) and chimpanzees.
Describe tool selectivity.
Selecting appropriate tools, rather than using them all/any.
Give 4 tasks in which animals (e.g. chimps and birds) can use future planning.
Tool use, object exchange, spatial navigation and food caching.
What is the aim and acts of Machiavellian intelligence?
Outcompeting conspecifics and tactical deception.
In ToM, what aspects of seeking and knowing can chimps display?
Knowing what others can and cannot see, what they might have seen and what is mismatched with actual conditions.
In ToM, what aspects of goals and intentions can chimps display?
Distinguishing unwilling and unable actors and using this knowledge to decide whether to punish others.
In ToM, what aspects of metacognition can chimps display?
Knowing what they have seen and know (e.g. in a seeking information paradigm).
What separates communication from action?
Motor ineffectiveness, response waiting, gaze alternation and repetition and elaboration.
Give 3 features of ontogenetic ritualisation.
Repeated interactions transform action into gesture, individual of pair specificity and flexibility.
Give 3 features of phylogenetic ritualisation.
Actions or cues are co-opted/modified into signals, species specificity and stability.
Define aggression.
“A suite of behaviours allowing an individual to convey strength to or physically defeat a conspecific.”
Define a dominance hierarchy.
A social relationship that ranks individuals in terms of the access that they have to resources, with dominant individuals having preferential access.
How do dominance hierarchies develop?
Through repeated interactions and outcomes of social exchanges and fights.
Signals and displays are subjected to (individual/group) selection.
Individual.
When can conflict get out of hand?
When contestants are evenly matched, there is a large benefit and cost is small.
Define conflict resolution.
“The outcome of actions that eliminate the incompatibility of goals, interests and attitudes of conflicting individuals.”
Give 2 pre-conflict mechanisms of resolution.
Dispersion and signals.
Define reconciliation.
Exchange of affiliation behaviour between 2 former opponents.
Define triadic reconciliation and aggression.
Exchange of affiliation/aggression between the aggressor or the victim and other individuals.
Define territoriality.
“The defence of maintenance of an area to the exclusion of others, typically same-sex conspecifics.”
Give 3 territorial behaviours.
Patrolling, fighting and advertising.
Give 5 costs of defending territory.
Injury, energy expenditure, reduced foraging, predation and reduced parental care.
Give 3 benefits of defending territory.
Food abundance and familiarity, mate attraction and maintenance and offspring protection.
Which quantitative mechanism is based on perceptual estimation and has a 7 item limit?
Subitizing.
Which quantitative mechanism is based on precise representation of discrete items and has a 4 item limit?
Object file system.
Define analog magnitude systems.
Cognitive mechanisms used to estimate whether 2 quantities differ in magnitude.
Define parental behaviour.
“Activities on the part of the parents that influence the development of their offspring from conception to complete independence.”
Define maternal care.
“Behaviour that continuities to the growth, development, survival, and subsequent fitness of offspring.”
Give 5 functions of parental behaviour.
Shelter construction, grooming, thermoregulation, nourishment and protection.
Define maternal expenditure.
The mother’s effort required for infant care within a specific reproductive event.
Define maternal investment.
Behaviour in the form of care/effort that is invested in the current offspring which reduces the mother’s capacity to invest in future offspring.
Give 3 maternal life history decisions.
Rate of nutrient delivery, response to infant signals and parental conflict (infant need vs. mother give).
(Precocial/altricial) infants are fully developed at birth.
Precocial.
(Precocial/altricial) infants are underdeveloped at birth.
Altricial.
In which maternal style is the mother responsible for approach, contact and nursing?
Protective.
In which maternal style is the mother in control of proximity and contact?
Restrictive.
In which maternal style is the mother and infant responsible for approaches?
Relaxed.
In which maternal style does the mother prevent nursing and limit contact?
Rejecting.
Give 4 infant responses to brief separation from their mother.
Approach and follow her, produce signals, HPA activation and increased heat rate.
Give 2 infant responses to prolonged separation from their mother.
Reduced cardiovascular response and reduced growth hormone secretion (saving energy in absence of mother).
Give an example of intra-sexual selection.
Mate competition.
Give 2 examples of inter-sexual selection.
Mate choice and courtship.
Give 6 factors that differ with parental investment.
Nutrients in gametes, gestation, lactation, direct provisioning, defence against predators and inheritance of territory.
Briefly describe the sexy sons hypothesis of passing on good genes.
Displays are selected to be attractive, and then sexy fathers produce sexy sons.
Briefly describe the handicap principle of passing on good genes.
Only successful individuals can afford costly traits.
Give 5 ways animals assess potential mates.
Using novel traits, copying others, comparisons, elaborated traits and multiple cues.
Give 3 ways to develop mate preferences.
Genetically fixed, sexually imprinted and learned.
Give a key factor for defining something as culture.
It cannot (totally) be explained by ecological determinants.
What type of learning is copying the outcome of actions?
Emulation.
What type of learning is copying actions themselves?
Imitative.
Define observation dear conditioning.
“Acquisition of a dear response towards a particular stimulus by observing a conspecific in an aversive circumstance, rather than through direct experience.”
Give 3 drives of social learning.
The majority, prestige and rank.
