Final Flashcards

Question

Acheulean tool technology

Answer 1

first appear in Africa between 1.5 and 1.2 MYA sharp bifaced tools with complex shaped edges, made from carefully selected stone materials some of the sharpest are made from volcanic glass rare in Asia

Answer 2

brain size (900-1200cc) is in the low modern range (1000-2000cc) sexual dimorphism similar to modern humans highly mobile societies stable foraging adaptation adaptation to diverse ecosystems no external symbols (artwork)

Answer 3

``` 700,000 years ago modern brain size (1500-2000 cc) elongated cranium robust face, with large orbital torus prognathic, high forehead ```

Answer 4

confined to Europe and Middle East, including Iraq and Israel from 120,000 to 30,000 years ago brain size above the modern average size less prognathous robust face, orbital torus, large nose, extensive turbinates exhibit many distinctive skeletal features shared with earlier homo species but not modern ones extinction likely caused by low temperatures

Answer 5

multiple stage tool manufacture with preparation of cores to better produce shaped flakes with broad continuous edges =complex planning and visualization of an indirect consequence specialized points; possible hafting

Answer 6

possible to do genetic testing because not always fully fossilized (this is not true of any other ancestor) likely interbred with eurasians some likely had fair skin and red hair, some had brown eyes and brown hair deliberate Neanderthal burial sites have been found; evidence shows they cared for the infirm and elderly may have had complex cultural traditions and beliefs

Answer 7

long arm of the Y chromosome does not recombine in sexual reproduction inherited intact from father to son therefore transmitted in an all or none fashion and so can be precisely traced from individual to individual without loss "rooted" in Africa because the greatest genetic differences between individuals are found in Africa

Answer 8

suggests a recent common origin from a small population all modern humans show less gene diversity than small populations of nonspecific apes even Neanderthals are closer to humans than different chimp populations are to one another genetic evidence: all modern human populations and "races" diverged from a common African population as recently as 70,000 years ago

Answer 9

diversification suggests that migration out of Africa may have involved the first continuous use of clothing body lice live and reproduce in clothing and only contact skin to feed, large recent clade suggests that humans began to wear clothing 72,000 years ago

Answer 10

mean IQ has been steadily increasing in industrialized countries (even when corrected for culture- and generation-specific content) IQ has high heritability

Answer 11

as body, brain, and life-span increase: slowing of metabolism, maturation, reproduction, and even reaction time greater opportunity for trial and error and learning from others instinct may be less critical for survival

Answer 12

measure of brain proportion that tries to "correct" for allometric effects not just brain/body ratio (which changes with size) measure of positive deviation with respect to the average brain/body size trend of other mammals primates deviate above the average trend for all mammals

Answer 13

small dog breeds can be as encephalized as primates (like chihuahuas) some are nearly as encephalized as humans but this does not necessarily make them more intelligent - they have been artificially bred for dwarfism or gigantism

Answer 14

1. post-cranial reduction = primate shift (two phases) -embryonic reduction of tissues comprising post-cranial body structures but not the brain in early embryogenesis 2. forebrain stem cell over-production = human shift -prolongation of brain growth phase 3. reduced postnatal body growth = dwarfism -regulated by growth hormone influences on the post-cranial body after major fetal brain growth phase Humans combine mechanisms 1 and 2

Answer 15

information processing cells of the brain unique in many ways: 1. once produced they do not divide again 2. ionically polarized, highly reactive surfaces (maintained by ion pumps) 3. elaborate specialized input (dendrite) and output (axon) 4. axons contact other distant neurons or synapses, where release of neurotransmitters stimulates or inhibits that neuron's activity 5. require support cells (glia) to provide oxygen and glucose

Answer 16

gray matter - densely packed neuronal soma white matter - densely packed myelinated connections gray matter sheets are called cortex gray matter clumps are called nuclei or ganglia white matter forms into tracts of parallel axons

Answer 17

spiral shaped cochlea is organized as tono-topic map hair cells in the cochlea create nerve impulses when they are "bent" by pressure waves spiral shape distributes different sound frequencies to different positions within it preserved in the auditory cortex of the temporal lobe

Answer 18

projections from the retinas partially cross at the optic chiasm, sending information from the contralateral (opposite side) visual fields to opposite sides of the visual cortex retinotopic map organization is preserved, but so is the binocular visuotopic map

Answer 19

more nerve cells die in the first two years than during the rest of life span over-production and selective elimination due to competition is analogous to natural selection prenatal loss of spinal motor neurons is extensive, but allows the brain to "adapt" to the body

Answer 20

transient period during which neural development is responsive to environmental input biased learning with a narrow maturational window - eg bird song or human language cued by species-typical "expected" developmental environments (eg imprinting)

Answer 21

super-learning salmon hatch in streams, then migrate, only to return years later based on subtle odor cues they imprinted on ground-dwelling birds must learn to recognize their parent within hours of hatching and develop a strong attachment; follow their parent to find food and avoid predation

Answer 22

BF Skinner: the blank slate argued that behavior can be divided neatly into instinct and learning, and that all learning depended only on laws of association and reinforcement eg stimulus response learning paired with rewarding or aversive consequences = reinforcement assumed that environmental contingencies can explain all complex non-instinctual behaviors

Answer 23

taste aversions can be learned within a single trial if nausea is produced within a short time (super learning) --> even if the food did not cause the nausea John Garcia: easy associations between smell/taste and nausea, sight/sound with electric shock exemplifies predisposed learning biases

Answer 24

learning is not just dependent on density and structure of reinforcement learning biases are innate and affect how experiences influence the development of behavior effects of "nurture" are biased by "nature"

Answer 25

herring gull chicks get their parents to regurgitate food by pecking a red spot on their beaks unlearned behavior can be elicited by a red pencil herring gulls can be tricked if their eggs are replaced by quite divergent alternatives (giant egg)

Answer 26

...there is an evolutionary consequence parasitized birds are capable of distinguishing their own eggs from a cuckoo's eggs, but not that they are feeding cuckoo chicks this is b/c by that time it is too late to start a new nest and raise chicks to maturity possibility of a mistake, risk of abandoning slightly variant chick

Answer 27

eg oyster-catchers, which spend many months in the company of their parents to learn to feed safely and effectively on oysters (so as not to break their beaks) no specific oyster-opening instinct, but many attentional/behavioral/social biases that facilitate learning

Answer 28

similar to bird song early learning of language, well before ability to read or write "wild children" isolated in early childhood offer evidence of a critical period for language acquisition "motherese"

Answer 29

innate, automatic, unanalyzed, non-combinatorial linked directly to arousal state interpreted innately or spontaneously iconic (looks/sounds like) or indexical (predictably correlated with) what it signals

Answer 30

innate emotional vocalizations = laughter, sobbing, grains language is cortically controlled innate vocalizations are controlled by the limbic system

Answer 31

Broca's: disturbance of the ability to produce speech difficult word production, loss of fluency, telegraphic speech, difficulties with production and comprehension of syntax Wernicke's: disturbance of language comprehension errors of word comprehension and production without loss of fluency, some semantic confusion

Answer 32

- requires the capacity to learn to articulate a wide range of oral sounds by mimicking others' speech sounds - uses a repertoire many orders of magnitude larger than than any other species (vocabulary) - uses combinatorial means to generate new meanings and references (grammar/syntax) - uses variant sound combinations to create meaningful words (duality of patterning) - differs in its way of referring to things (symbolic): allows reference to past, future, abstract objects

Answer 33

attached to the hyoid bone and suspended from the base of the skull and the tip of the jaw vocal fold tension is controlled by the muscles that move 4 cartilages with respect to one another steps: 1. inter-arytenoid muscles rotate the paired arytenoid cartilages inward to bring the vocal folds together 2. muscles rock the thyroid cartilage forward on the cricoid cartilage to create vocal fold tension

Answer 34

iKON: reference by likeness drawing, pantomime, camouflage, sculpture index: reference by physical-temporal correlation pointer, symptom, correlated feature, sample symbol: reference by conventional symptom only word, insignia, religious icon

Answer 35

positioned lower compared to other primates | allows a wider range of vocal sounds with less nasality

Answer 36

human babies are born immature (altricial) compared to most other mammals birth is far more traumatic for both mothers and newborns than most other species human brains have enlarged in hominid evolution the pelvis has narrowed/shortened to provide efficient bipedalism

Answer 37

uniparous: mostly have precocial babies and relatively easy births; humans are the rare exception multiparous: litter size correlates with shorter gestation and immature neonates

Answer 38

human birth is difficult, human babies are altricial advantages of maintaining human gestation length were sufficient to prevent earlier birth (despite maternal pelvic constraints) human brain growth continues at fetal rates after birth, meaning that human infants are born more altricial and demand more prolonged and extensive care than other primates

Answer 39

1. human fetal brain growth is typical for a mammal 2. human gestation length is typical for an ape 3. increase in brain size --> increase in altriciality

Answer 40

few remaining mature follicles cannot produce enough estrogen and progesterone to maintain hormonal feedback to the hypothalamus and pituitary leads to hormonal dysregulation and loss of remaining immature oocytes

Answer 41

we age slower than our body size predicts --> suggests that menopause arose as a side-effect of extended lifespan for our body size not an adaptation

Answer 42

``` evidence for damage theories: -basal metabolism (rate of living) -body size correlation -oxidative damage -telomere deletion/repair evidence for evolved obsolescence: -comparative reproductive trade-offs -iteroparity/semelparity differences -predation rate and arboreality effects -disposable soma theory -pleiotropic partitioning ```

Answer 43

regulate gene expression both water and fat soluble, pass easily through cell membranes, bind to receptor molecules in target cells, which modifies gene expression and protein synthesis hormones are synthesized from cholesterol and each other

Answer 44

male and female gonadal axes are regulated by the same hypothalamic and pituitary hormones LH and FSH perform homologous functions with respect to hormone production and gamete maturation in the two sexes

Answer 45

male and female external genitalia are also formed from a common substrate testosterone and its metabolites differentiate the male, by closing the ano-genital opening to make penis and scrotum female form is the "default" pattern and does not require hormonal intervention to develop

Answer 46

Kleinfeldter's Syndrome: XXY karyotype, male hormones until puberty when breasts enlarge (gender identity is male) Turner's Syndrome: X0 karyotype, female genitalia but some physical abnormalities (gender identity is female) Androgen insensitivity syndrome: XY chromosomal male with faulty testosterone receptor, feminized external genitalia (gender identity mostly female)

Answer 47

1. attachment - affiliative-nurturant vs aggressive-detached 2. sexual partnering/male choice - long-term reluctant vs variety-promiscuous - status attributes vs physical attributes 3. erotic target - male vs female physique 4. self image - male vs female physique

Answer 48

``` life history = typical sequence and schedule of maturational/senescence events human heterochrony: immature birth prolonged brain maturation prolonged childhood adolescence post reproductive life extension ```

Answer 49

with industrialization, there has been a significant decline in the age of sexual maturity in both sexes and a significant postponement of marriage and first conception in pre-industrialized societies, marriage is generally close to the age of sexual maturity --> social consequence of spending nearly a decade of life sexually mature but societally prevented from reproducing?

Answer 50

domestication = relaxation of selection on a number of critical physiological, emotional, and cognitive adaptations 1. possibility of language depends on a loss of innate biases rather than introduction of an innate language faculty 2. novel artificial niche - resulting in unprecedented natural selection on mental functions 3. produces changes in brain size, regional proportions, and connection patterns to adapt to these special demands

Answer 51

1. both have lost the link with specific emotional states 2. equalization of transition biases from sound to sound 3. increased influence of auditory learning for vocalization 4. many more widely distributed forebrain structures were recruited and function synergistically 5. vocal repertoire largely determined by social transmission 6. innate call features are still used to express emotion as speech prosody

Answer 52

procedural memory - frontal-striatal-cerebellar circuit creates memory traces for skilled action by constant repetition and fine tuning episodic memory - sensory-hippocampal circuit creates memory traces for singular experiences by correlations between features language: source of a new synergistic form of memory (narrative memory)h

Answer 53

we compulsively expect to interpret things symbolically symbolic reframing of iconism uniquely human emotions, result of dissonant icons

Answer 54

short-circuit of natural selection beavers modified their ecosystem so that beaver bodies have had to adapt to the aquatic niche created by beaver activity symbolic niche evolution

Answer 55

refers to the parallel transmission of information and influence both by genetic and by communication-learning mechanisms two forms of inheritance aren't symmetric b/c the ability to transmit and acquire non-genetic information is a consequence of evolved capacities form and content of the communication and biases of the learning processes that support socio-cultural-technological transmission will tend to be influenced by evolved psychological biases

Answer 56

modern environments diverging from the human EEA | EEA = environment of evolutionary adaptation

Answer 57

1. selection conditions change eg agriculture, industry, migration 2. causality is not understood, or hard to discover eg Kuru, colostrum denial, birth control 3. elites (empowered individuals) manipulate others eg war, religious sacrifice, status polygyny 4. costs of exploitation accumulate over time eg ecological over-exploitation, global warming

Answer 58

a prion disease prions = proteins related to naturally occurring brain proteins bind to these normal proteins and change their shape (conformation) these then become prions, which are not broken down, accumulate in the brain, cause neuron death cultural enhancement of prion propagation = cannibalism

Answer 59

thick yellowish liquid that has little protein, fat, or milk sugar primary breast "milk" for the first days afterbirth fills breast alveoli prior to birth rich in igG antibodies - may have evolved to protect the alveoli from infection ingestion by neonate protects the infant from intestinal bacteria, etc. withheld from some newborns in some cultures as bad milk --> hard to link to infant mortality

Answer 60

how technology fools biology increased female education and autonomy, increased education generally --> reduced birth rates, later marriage, upward shift in age pyramid increased localized population densities = increased interdependence among strangers increased communication and information sharing --> decreased personal violence and decreased tolerance for accepting inequality and suffering --> predictive science and increased potential for innovation

Answer 61

1. humans have inherited evolved learning biases, social emotions, and behavior tendencies relevant to a past EEA 2. these "expect" and depend on certain environmental inputs for normal development 3. we have been evolving for over 2 million years in an artifically constructed niche of symbols and tools 4. this forms a parallel inheritance process that has its own evolutionary logic that is still poorly understood 5. human psychological adaptations have co-evolved with this artificial niche and our brains "expect" this culturally transmitted information to inform normal brain development 6. this dependency has produced a kind of self-domestication that has produced considerable flexibility of behavior 7. industrialization has produced an environment very different from our EEA (more maladaptation) 8. knowledge and communication can "fool" our evolved tendencies into producing maladaptation (not all of which is bad)