L6-8

Question 1

2 main differences between culture in humans vs animals

Answer 1

humans learn cultural information much faster than other animals and have cumulative cultural complexity

Question 2

2 types of cultural learning

Answer 2

individual learning and social learning

Question 3

Cephalization factor

Answer 3

slope of the line of best fit depicting the relationship between body weight and brain weight; allows us to predict the average brain weight of a species

Question 4

Encephalization quotient (EQ)

Answer 4

actual brain weight/expected brain weight based on body weight

Question 5

What is greater EQ associated with?

Answer 5

more social species (live in larger groups) and complex social systems (e.g. hierarchy)

Question 6

3 propositions for why humans have such large brains

Answer 6

fruit consumption, food extraction, social brain (social brain hypothesis)

Question 7

Fruit consumption proposition for human brain size

Answer 7

primates needed to develop mental maps for when and where fruits grow as they are seasonal and grow in patches

Question 8

Food extraction proposition for human brain size

Answer 8

primates eat a lot of foods (e.g. nuts) that require ingenuity and creative tool usage to acquire

Question 9

Social brain hypothesis

Answer 9

cognitive demands inherent in social living (e.g. navigating complex relationship networks) led to the evolution of large primate brains

Question 10

Neocortex

Answer 10

most newly evolved part of the cerebral cortex that is associated with higher order functions like sensory perception, language, and complex thought

Question 11

Neocortex ratio

Answer 11

volume of the neocortex/volume of the rest of the brain

Question 12

Relationship of fruit consumption to neocortex ratio (Dunbar)

Answer 12

unrelated to brain evolution and neocortex ratio

Question 13

Relationship of food extraction to neocortex ratio (Dunbar)

Answer 13

no significant difference in the neocortex ratio of those that use extractive foraging methods and those that use non-extractive methods

Question 14

Relationship of group size to neocortex ratio (Dunbar)

Answer 14

larger group sizes tend to be associated with larger neocortex ratios (with humans having the largest)

Question 15

Cultural brain hypothesis (Muthukrishna et al.)

Answer 15

social learning is a key aspect of the link between brain size and group size; results in increased cultural complexity

Question 16

Benefits of large group sizes

Answer 16

survival skills (e.g. predation protection, cooperation, hunting, division of labor) and more effective cultural learning

Question 17

Ratchet effect

Answer 17

cultural information continues to build without losing the earlier information; suggests that human cultural learning is cumulative

Question 18

Implication of ratchet effect on tools

Answer 18

tools will generally only increase in complexity over time to more effectively accomplish its intention; technology only goes backwards when there’s a massive loss in population

Question 19

What challenge in cultural learning is faced within large group sizes?

Answer 19

prestige bias

Question 20

Physiological consequence of larger brains

Answer 20

loss of muscle and intestinal length (which require high energy expenditure) as energy is used in maintaining the brain

Question 21

2 types of causes that explain cultural variation

Answer 21

proximal causes and distal causes

Question 22

Proximal causes

Answer 22

something that has direct and immediate effects (e.g. cargo brought by European colonizers to Papua New Guinea)

Question 23

Distal causes

Answer 23

initial differences that lead to effects over long time periods, usually through indirect relationships

Question 24

Dynamic social impact theory

Answer 24

individuals influence each other through interacting, leading to clusters of like-minded people separated by geography (i.e. cultures)

Question 25

Individualistic cultures

Answer 25

variety of practices and customs that encourage individuals to place their personal goals ahead of those of the collective and to consider their distinctiveness

Question 26

Collectivistic cultures

Answer 26

practices, institutions, customs that encourage individuals to place more emphasis on collective goals (especially one’s ingroup)

Question 27

Pluralistic ignorance

Answer 27

tendency for people to collectively misinterpret the thoughts that underlie the behavior of others (e.g. due to social undesirability of expressing private thoughts)

Question 28

How does cultural evolution use the principles of biological evolution?

Answer 28

to explain cultural variability/similarities around the world

Question 29

How does cultural evolution use mathematical models?

Answer 29

to explain the likelihood of individual learning vs social learning in different environments

Question 30

2 kinds of research papers

Answer 30

empirical and review papers (e.g. meta-analyses, literature review)

Question 31

Empirical papers

Answer 31

provides new information to the field based on new data from new studies

Question 32

Meta-analyses

Answer 32

statistical summary (average of the effect size) of previously published papers to provide the best estimate of what the true effect size should be

Question 33

Literature review

Answer 33

summary of existing information reorganized into a novel framework

Question 34

Difference between the purpose of meta-analyses and literature review

Answer 34

summarizes current knowledge; clarifies the structure of existing knowledge

Question 35

Phylogeny tree

Answer 35

reconstructed ancestry tree that visually represents cultural evolution (i.e. how different species emerge) and diversity based on shared characteristics applied to different aspects of culture (e.g. language)