Comparative Psychology Flashcards
What competing drives influence animal behavior?
Animals must balance drives like hunger/thirst against vigilance for predators, leading to moment-to-moment behavioral choices.
How do emotionally salient memories involve the amygdala?
The amygdala acts like a “highlighter”, facilitating encoding and consolidation of emotionally charged memories.
What evidence suggests dogs and humans have co-evolved a special bond?
Dogs and humans show a mutually reinforcing oxytocin feedback loop during sustained eye contact, facilitating emotional attunement.
Why are rodents used so extensively in neuroscience research?
Rodents are small, allow standardized environments, and have brains comparable enough to humans to provide translatable insights.
What did the Russian farm fox experiment demonstrate about domestication?
Selecting foxes solely for friendliness to humans over a few decades recapitulated the behavioral and morphological changes seen in dog domestication.
How do wasps display individual recognition abilities?
Some social wasps can recognize individual faces, an adaptation for navigating their complex colonies. They also process faces holistically.
What evidence challenges the view of ants as merely “hardwired”?
Ants showed cognitive flexibility by creatively using novel materials like sponges to transport honey water to their nest.
How do bee swarms optimize their nest site selection?
Scout bees perform dances conveying site quality, with better sites eliciting more vigorous dances. This allows the swarm to collectively choose the best site.
What evolutionary considerations impact translating findings between rats and mice?
Rats and mice diverged over 50 million years ago, so a test suitable for one species may not be ecologically valid for the other.
How does handling method affect mouse exploratory behavior?
Mice picked up by the tail show inhibited exploration compared to tunnel-handled mice, highlighting how handling can contaminate behavioral results.
What are the consequences of standard laboratory housing for rodents?
Barren, stimulus-poor standard cages restrict natural behaviors and brain development compared to enriched environments.
How did Jaak Panksepp challenge assumptions about rodent emotions?
Panksepp showed rats will work for tickling, suggesting they experience joy. Ultrasonic vocalizations also convey affective states.
What evidence supports empathy-like behavior in rodents?
Rats will preferentially free a trapped companion over obtaining a food reward, especially if they’ve experienced similar distress.
How does inequity aversion in Capuchin monkeys relate to human behavior?
Monkeys react negatively to unequal reward distribution, similar to how perceived unfairness can trigger stress responses in humans.
What societal-level impact can income inequality have on mental health?
Even with similar material conditions, greater income inequality is associated with higher rates of depression and stress-related illness.
