Lecture 21: Human and animal Flashcards
List the challenges in social situations for primates
Competition over food, cooperation for food, learning from others and communication. These all require cognitive abilities. Competition for food requires perspective taking and theory of mind. Cooperation requires knowing when and with whom to cooperate. Learning requires emulation and imitation.
What cognitive techniques are used in terms of competing for food?
Social intelligence, machiavellian intelligence, gaze following, e.g. apes look up for often after a human did it. This is widespread and is urgent in evolutionary function. Primates can attention read, this means they will take the food off the competitor that isn’t looking (Flombaum 2005). They also produce more behaviours if the competitor is looking, like vocalisations etc. This also happens with dogs, they’re most likely to retrieve the food if the competitor has their eyes closed. They also perspective take, for example if they are faced with a dominant individual then they will grab the food that is hidden from them compared to the visible food (Hare 2000). Also, if birds have been observed during initial hiding then they’re more likely to take the food if they’re experienced thieves (Emery 2001). There is evidence for theory of mind as well as animals take into account of whether the other animal can see or has seen in the past.
Describe the cognitive behaviours involved with cooperation for food
Children cooperate even if its costly to themselves. For example, helping someone lift a tube with two handles or passing an object to someone that is out of reach for them. Grooming is another type of cooperation. The relationship between the participant matters, the stronger the relationship, the more cooperation occurs. Melis 2006 found that chimps initially differentiate between good and bad helpers and then at a later date they mainly recruit the good ones. Carter 2009 found that hyenas cooperate by both pulling a rope to get food. Bats show prosocial altruistic choices (positive behaviours to others driven by empathy). Children show a lot more prosocial behaviours when in a helpful condition compared to apes, suggesting that they aren’t prosocial (Bullinger 2011). They aren’t motivated to be prosocial but they sometimes cooperate depending on the relationship.
Describe the cognitive behaviours involved with learning from others
Cumulative culture, this is the ratchet effect, developed by Tomasello 1999, which involves different individuals adding to an idea to make it better, e.g. a ratchet resulting in a digger. Also there are cultural difference in cognitions showing that they have imitated different things from others. Gergely 2002 found that 14 month babies only copied others in certain contexts. For example, if the person’s hands were free and they used their head to turn on the light, the children imitated it but if the person’s hands weren’t free and they used their heads the children wouldn’t imitate it as they would assume the person isn’t using the hands because they can’t. The macaques washing potatoes is another example of social learning. When shown how to open a box, the children copied it but the apes used their own techniques, this is because they have different learning mechanisms (Whiten 1996). People can learn by imitation; copy demonstrators actions and results or emulation; copy the results but are unaware of the actions. In the peanut study, the chimps were as equally as successful in the emulation study compared to the full demo study but they did better than the no demo condition.
