Quiz 10 Flashcards
Describe one way that animal calls (including human laughter and sobbing) differ from words and speech in how they are control in the brain and one way in which they differ in how they refer to things.
Human speech is unique because the larynx is cortically controlled in order to produce it; the development of speech also marks a shift toward emotional expression.
What is the larynx made of? In what way is the position of the human larynx unusual for a primate? What does this difference likely contribute to human speech?
The larynx is made primarily of cartilage along with a number of muscles and ligaments; its position in humans is unusually low, enabling a wider range of vocal sounds with less nasality.
The human abilities to learn to produce new words and phrases, and to sing, are probably the result of what difference in human brains compared with most other mammals?
Human language requires relationships between multiple cortical areas that originally evolved to serve other functions.
Human birth is relatively difficult and painful as compared to chimpanzee birth, and human infants are born in a more immature state (altriciality) than are chimpanzee infants.
a. What differences in the pelvis contribute to this difference?
b. Name another animal (common name, genus, or species) that has a difficult
birth? Why is birth difficult for this species?
c. What differences in the brain account for human immaturity at birth?
d. Name another species that has comparatively immature newborns, and one
that has comparatively mature newborns (precociality).
a) The pelvis narrowed during hominid evolution along with the trend toward bipedalism, resulting in a smaller human birth canal.
b) Another species that has a difficult birth is the tamarind because they have a relatively small pelvis.
c) In human babies, despite the gestation period being normal, the brain still continues to develop for a long time after birth and ends up being a larger size than in other mammals. This results in higher altriciality.
d) Another species with relatively altricial newborns is mice, while most mammal newborns (giraffe, elephant, polar bear) are comparatively precocial.
Most other female primates (and female mammals in general) are fertile right up to the end of their lifespan, but human females cease reproduction (menopause) as much as four decades earlier than their maximum lifespan. Describe one of the theories proposed to explain why human women evolved menopause.
One theory proposes that menopause involved in human women as a side-effect of an extended lifespan, rather than an adaptation to anything.
Describe one kind evidence used to suggest that aging is an adaptation from an evolutionary perspective, and not merely the inevitable wearing out of body parts.
Some evidence used to suggest that aging is a form of “planned obsolescence” is the
Describe one kind evidence used to suggest that aging is an adaptation from an evolutionary perspective, and not merely the inevitable wearing out of body parts.
Some evidence used to suggest that aging is a form of “planned obsolescence” is the difference between semelparous and iteroparous structures.
