Lecture 8 - Comparative Cognition Flashcards
What are 4 special features of primates:
- mainly omnivores
- rely on vision over smell
- depth perception
- colour perception (to know what. fruit to eat)
- 5, separate digits
- encephalized (bigger brain than body)
What was Darwin’s three basic principles in origin of species?
- All individuals vary (within and across species)
- Some variants more likely to survive and reproduce
- If each generation is different from the last, then the species will eventually change
Explain briefly who we are related too and where we came from.
We are from the APE branch in the evolution tree. Descended from a common ancestor of chimps. Closer related to chimps than chimps are to gorillas.
What two biases do we have in the literature about animal cognition:
- Emphasising discontinuity - to justify human superiority or to justify poor treatment of animals
- Emphasising continuity- to support Darwin and that we are apart of nature or to show “their” animal has a capacity
What experimental evidence supports the notion that animals can feel and experience pain?
Edpareit et al found that rats preferred sugar water over analgesic water. However, rats with arthritis preferred analgesic water. So experienced pain and they wanted to reduce it.
What was the clever hans phenomenon and what did it try to prove?
The clever hans phenomenon tried to prove that animals had intelligence. Clever hans appeared to be able to answer his trainers questions by stamping his foot in response. Interestingly though when the trainer couldn’t answer the question, neither could clever hans. It was concluded that Clever hans had read the trainers body signals and cues to answer the question
What is the Machiavellian hypothesis of the evolution of intelligence?
The hypothesis states that there is a positive relationship between the number of people in your social group and the size of your neocortex.
What evidence of communication did marler et al find in monkeys? However, what is still though to be lacking in primate language?
Marler et al found that monkeys had certain calls for predators (humans, eagles, leopard etc) to warn other monkeys. They also found that the monkeys used these calls for deception. There has been no evidence found for syntax in monkey communication.
Who is kanzi and what could she do?
Kanzi was the offspring of another chimp that was being trained in communication. Kanzi picked up the lexigram symbols that were being taught and can now use lexigrams and sign language to communicate with her trainer. Kanzi is the most linguistically component non-human.
Do chimps/apes have mirror self recognition? Explain an experimenter that supports these results.
Chimps and apes both have mirror self recognition, they will look at themselves and pick at their bodies. Gallup developed a mark test where a mark was placed on the animals head and placed in front a mirror to see if they recognise that the dot is on their head and shouldn’t be. Results indicated that children passed the test by 18 months of age and chimps and apes were the only other animals successful at completing the task.
What did the gibbon self recognition task find?
No gibbon noticed themselves or the mark in the mirror. There was numerous evidence of absence
What’s the difference between primary representations and secondary representations in pretend play and which ones do apes have?
Primary representations are the current beliefs about reality and secondary representations are about the pretend world. It is believed that apes produce these secondary representations
What’s the difference between analogy and homology?
Analogy is the acquisition of a skill at different parts of the tree (independently evolved it)
Homology is the acquisition of a skill because a previous animal did (trait has been passed done)
Filling the gap : hominids
After spilt from apes and chimps there were 23 different human -like species, these are now extinct. If they weren’t extinct then there would be such a large gap and the gap will become larger if we loose the chimps.
