Comparative Cognition & Theories

Question 1

comparative cognition

Answer 1

study of information processing across a variety of species - comparing abilities

Question 2

counting in animals

Answer 2

numerosity: the ability to understand quantitiy

ex: Hans the counting horse - some species can do things we are, and how the person teaches the animal is through chaining and principles of operant conditioning
- chaining, not counting

Question 3

Operant equation for Hans

Answer 3

Question (SD): tap ground(R) -> subtle change in appearance of questioner (SR/SD)

stop tapping (R) -> reward (SR)

Question 4

Chaining and tool use

Answer 4

• Complex sequences of tool use can be trained.
• Because of ability to use tools we can say they have higher cognitive ability
• Animal understands the relationship between objects and their effects

biological preparedness helps with this!

Question 5

observational learning and tool use

Answer 5

it is easiest to use existing objects, acquired through observational learning
- may even use tools that won’t work, but have worked before - variety of tools for variety of tasks
ex: chimps may use different kinds of sticks to get termites - observation + social interaction

Question 6

Theory of mind and tool use

Answer 6

• Requires the cognitive capacity to understand cause and effect.
  ex: great precision for chimps to get their food, planning ahead to manipulate the environment, uniquely human
• the ability to attribute mental states to other individuals (higher forms of intelligence)
  ex: thinking of oneself as separate from others and understanding others have their own minds (Self-awareness: the ability to see one’s self as different from others)
• can have sympathy (1st lvl) + empathy (2nd, higher lvl) for others

Question 7

episodic memory

Answer 7

Memory for an event that occurred at a specific time and place (what, where, when) - autobiographical memory

• a type of long term memory

Question 8

Short term memory

Answer 8

• ability to remember events in the last 15 seconds
• 7 +/- pieces of info in short-term memory

ex: reading a list of numbers and reading them back - phone number

Question 9

working memory

Answer 9

ability to actively manipulate items in short-term memory

ex: remembering a list of numbers - repeating them backward (reverse order) manipulating them in your head
ex: mental math

memory is like stimulus discrimination - ex: multiple choice test

Question 10

memory in animals

Answer 10

they are non-verbal so it is difficult to do and requires more effort

Question 11

Delayed Matching to Sample Task

Answer 11

An animal might be shown a sample stimulus and following a time delay is required to select that stimulus out of a set of alternative stimuli, the extent to which it can choose the correct one describes how it can remember that stimulus
- varying the length of the delay we can figure our how long it takes people to store working memory
- working memory test

Question 12

Matching to Sample

Answer 12

Short-term memory test
- shown a stimulus and required to remember it from a subsequent set, and choose the one that matched what they had to memorize
- there is no delay
in a test sample, they will be shown different stimuli with the original and they must identify the correct one (the original)
- can also have one for the location (spacial)
- we can increase the number of test stimuli as well - increasing difficulty
- we can increase the similarity of the stimuli aswell

relies on frontal lobe

Question 13

Delayed non-matching-to-sample

Answer 13

• doing the same thing but pikcing out the different- non matching sample
• test of working memory ad frontal lobe and hippocampus function
  ex: may be presented with a circle and your job is to choose anything but a circle

Question 14

Animal memory in the real world

Answer 14

chickadee: food storing
junkos: non food storing

• used a delayed matching to sample task to asses a preference for location for visual features

ex: blue and left, but then presented with blue on the right, they wanted to know which stimulus would the chickadee vs junko select

• chickadees chose correct by location
• junkos didn’t care much

the size of the hippocampus (strong with spatial memory) is positively correlated with the amount of food storing that a species does as well as the amount of practice that any individual has had

chickadees grow new hippocampal neurons in the fall when they need to store food for winter
- neurogenesis

similar species can have different abilities if subjected to different environmental demands
different species can have similar abilities is subjected to similar environmental demands

Question 15

Tolman’s Cognitive behaviorism

Answer 15

gestalt view of learning - looking at things as a whole
- cognitive maps!

environment -> internal cognitive processes (expectations/hypotheses) -> behaviour

Question 16

Hippocampus crutial for:

Answer 16

forming cognitive maps
hippocampal place cells fire in response to a location

hippocampus in a rat’s brain becomes active when rats go through a maze have have to remember how to get to the food/how to get out

Question 17

Hippocampus damage

Answer 17

memory for well-learned groups is still preserved following damage, secondary areas that supplement it, so people who have taken a route many times they can still do so but may not remember why

animals:
- difficult to assess the quality of complex, familiar spatial memory
- they give control over the history and lesion site and time of lesion