Week 2 (readings & lab) Flashcards
1
Q
evolutionary psychology was apart of what wave of the cognitive revolution?
A
the second wave
wave 1: - computational processes generate knowledge about the world (perception, attention, and reasoning). - the mind was perceived to be a blank slate that was free of content until written by experience before the analogy that the mind is a switchboard emerged. - learning mechanisms in the brain were believed to be domain-general (i.e., respond the same to all content). = cognitive psychology
wave 2: - views the brain as being composed of evolved computational systems, engineered by natural selection, to use the information to adaptively regulate physiology and behavior (i.e., the shift from knowledge acquisition to the adaptive regulation of behavior). - focuses on adaptive specializations that are triggered by specific stimuli rather than domain- general. - there are adaptive cognitions and motivations for their ancestors, hunter-gatherers, that are still present today but not necessarily still useful/adaptive. - It combines theories from biology, psychology, anthropology and cognitive neuroscience. = evolutionary psychology
2
Q
From the evolutionary perspective:
A
- every organ, including the brain, has an evolved function (the brain is computer designed to extract and process information from the environment to guide behaviour). - they've evolved through natural selection to responded to changes in the environment and aid reproductive success. - programs within the brain have evolved from our ancestors and were passed on because they meet the selective pressures of their environment and still exist today but may not be useful in the current environment. - quantitative (simple) traits can evolve faster but it still takes thousands of years (generations; more than an individuals lifetime) for natural selection to evolve complex brain programs. - modern environments are very different from ancestral ones (hunting/gathering/cooperation/predators vs cars/people/technology/trees vs buildings). - natural selection is combined with replicator dynamics () and game theory we can understand adaptive behavior. - evolutionary psychologists claim information processing is functionally specialised or domain-specific.
3
Q
domain general programs…
A
can not produce adaptive behavior unless they interact with domain-specific programs.
4
Q
how do we find out if a current trait is an adaption?
A
we search for problems in our ancestral history and try to find variations or adaptations that could’ve solved this issue.
It allows us to form testable hypotheses about the structure of programs in the mind.
5
Q
The advantages of using an evolutionary psychology framework:
A
- the importance of considering ancestral environments. - studies and models on hunter-gatherers from behaviour ecology discipline and combines it with psychology findings to take research in new directions. - evolutionary game theory allows us to make testable hypotheses on the cognitive. design (evolution of programs) - hypothesis on adaptations are compared with alternative hypothesis - content-specific programs - computational programs
6
Q
Evolutionary Psychology on Visual Attention:
A
- few studies have looked at the evolved programs being evolutionary systems designed to deploy attention to specific stimuli in the environment independent to individual goals/motivation. - low-level visual systems assess the shape and color of stimuli so is not beneficial for scanning the environment for friends and foe. - task/goal-relevant visual systems are a sophisticated monitoring system to identify friends and foes in their immediate environment. - have these sophisticated systems evolved to specialize in attending to human faces? the alternative hypothesis is that these systems are domain-general and respond to all stimuli the same way. Individuals with Autism rule out this theory because it selectively disrupts attention to faces and not all stimuli.
Animal Monitoring: - spotting animals was a useful tool for our ancestors which is not so useful now; spotting moving vehicles is a beneficial skill in the current environment. - New et al. (2007) use a change detection task to see if participants were better able to detect the same change in the environment between very similar pictures when it was object or animal- related. - the change blindness phenomenon is when the change is not spotted.
*change blindness is limited to inanimate objects meaning that individuals are better able to detect changes in the state/location of animals better than objects. Animals/humans detected better than inanimate objects.
Where did the animal monitoring system evolve from? - New et al. (2007) tested the phylogenetic (old animal monitoring over generations) and ontogenetic (new vehicle monitoring within individuals lifetime) hypotheses. - animals vs vehicles: - the speed and accuracy of change detection were better for animals than vehicles. This supports the phylogenetic hypothesis that animal monitoring systems are context-specific attentional systems triggered by animals.
- animals vs faces.
- if accuracy and speed of
change detection is better in
people than animals then this
would indicate that familiarity
with stimuli influences
performance. This hypothesis
was not supported and they
found marginal differences in
humans’ ability to detect
changes in animals or
humans. - this implies that attentional
systems evolved from hunter-
gatherers and are content-
specific systems to detecting
changes in animals and faces.
Automatic Regulation of Attention by High-Level Social Cues: - evolved function of ingroup- outgroup bias aided hunter- gatherers by helping them distinguish between and recall information about ingroup members and view outgroup members all the same (outgroup homogeneity/cross- race recognition). - is this system triggered by angry faces? - Ackerman et al. (2006) found that white people recognized black/angry better than or just as good as white/neutral. - even with distractions and time constraints. - the outgroup homogeneity and cross-race recognition bias can be reversed when threats are present (angry outgroup members for black not white faces; ingroup angry faces are not as much of a threat and not a part of the cognitive specific system) - white faces were processed equally fast when they were neutral or angry.
*spontaneous automatic program activation to ancestrally relevant cues rather than in response to participant's explicit current violations goal.
Spatial Cognition & Navigation: - are their sex differences in human behavior? - are they sexually monomorphic or dimorphic sex differences in spatial cognition and navigation. - from an evolutionary psychology perspective we would not expect there to be sex differences if the problem the system evolved to address is the same for both sexes. - sex differences occur when the adaptive problem systematically impacts men and women different. - spatial cognition specialized for foraging: - men better at mental rotation for hunting and women are better at spatial and navigational skills that allow them to find and remember where food sources are in their environment relative to other plants. - New et al. (2007) study with the farmers market where women were better at remembering the location of food-related items and males at non-food-related items. - content-specific systems which evolved from sex differences in skills needed to meet the selective pressures of their environment.
Kransnow et al. (2011) confirmed that its the absolute location being held in spatial memory better in women than men AND is highly specific to fruit and not inanimate objects.
The nutritional content of food (calories). In accordance with the optimal foraging theory, we see that people exert more energy to find food resources with higher calorie content than others (in men and women; independent effect on performance to gender! context matters).
7
Q
computational adaptations
A
evolved systems designed (by natural selection) to monitor information and use it to functionally regulate their physiology or behaviour.
8
Q
environment of evolutionary adaptiveness
A
the series of ancestral environments/selection pressures that sculpted the design of an adaption
9
Q
replicator dynamics
A
how genes change in frequency in the population
10
Q
Siberian Fox Breeding:
A
- example of artificial breeding where humans selectively breed animals to pass on a specific genetic variation, like friendliness onto the offspring in an attempt to domesticate Siberian Foxs. - Dmitrybelyaev is a Russian geneticist (1917-1985) who came up with the radical idea that domesticated animals are friendly towards humans due to genetics. - wolves transitioned into dogs naturally over time where friendliness was selected for so they could I've besides humans. - tame does not mean man's best friend. Fox's are still mischievous and not as hypersocial as dogs. - dogs were friendly and socialized but foxes were the only ones bred for the friendliness genes. - the friendliness gene could be theoretically applied to other animals to domesticate them as well.
domestication syndrome where behavioral traits changes coincide with physical changes in the fur coat, floppy ears, skull shape.
Artificial selection: - the genes we want to select for are dependent on the genes in the wolf population. - we are selecting for specific genes in the gene sequence.
11
Q
True or false questions about artificial selection:
A
Traits/features occur because an organism needs or wants them? o Myth! This is false, adaptions are the result of random genetic variations where adaptive traits are preserved and unadaptive traits die out. Individuals cannot evolve genetically, poulations evolve! Traits or features are gradually lost because they’re not used? o Myth! This is false because loss occurs through a number of processes including natural selection (which works at a population level and is linked to whether the trait improves the reproductive success of the group, if not it is lost over time). Environmental variations which occur during an organisms life cannot be passed on to offspring? o True! Environmental varitations cannot be passed onto offspring. Only genetic variation is inheritble. o But: genes can be switched on and off through cheical processes (acivation or de- activation) through envioronmental effects (e.g., famine and epigenetics). In otherwords, environment influences which genes are expressed and passed on across generations. Not all genetic variations are useful? o True! Variation is random! Therefore, it can be benifical, neutral or harmful. It often depends on how the trait is expressed (homo vs hetero form).
12
Q
Phenologies:
A
Phenologies was termed by Francis Galton (darwins cousin) where he ran into the problem termed Toblers 1st law. o The issue of non- independence- just because two groups share a trait doesn’t mean it is an evolved adaptations (i.e., could be a shared traits from a common ancestor rather than an adaption). o Autocorrelation: similarity between observations as a function of the time lag between them. We can study autocorrelations using phenology trees. Phylogenetic trees are a useful way of tracing evolutionary adaptations and relationships. This allows us to explore whether two or more species that share traits fo because they share the same evolutionary history. Is it a shared trait due to a shared evolutionary history or is it a shared adaptation? Help with the debate on if we evolved from apes why are there still apes (myth) o This assumes that all members of a group evolve simaltaneously. o Placing apes and humans on a phenolgy tree helps address this myth. o Homosapien-homoerectus line is a distinct branchs on the tree that share a common anxcestor at the root of the tree (hominin ancestor). Humans did not evlove out of chimpanzees. They are not limited on biological relationships and can be applied to culture, language, religion.
13
Q
parts of a phylogenetic tree
A
o Branches are straight lines that describe the relationships between two different groups or entities. o Branches extend from nodes or branch points that represent groups. o Taxons/leafs are nodes that only have one connections (tips of a tree) these describe a singular grouping. o Clades are a grouping of leafs which only have one common ancestor. o A & B are in the same clade and share a common ancestor but C & D are in a different clade. o A & E share a distant common ancestor three generations back. o The Root is the furtherst back shared ancestor for all groups (clades or leafs).
14
Q
phylogenetic trees
A
Visually depict how species on the tree are related to one another. One branch represents a single species. When two branches (species) connect this means they share a common ancestor. Fork/Split point depicts the moment where a common ancestor species sepearated into two distinctive species. This process is called speciation. Overtime, you get more splits, speciation and biodiversity. A heirarchal arrangement to see which other species a group is closeley related to. Not a literal timeline. Tips earlier, base of tree is older. The more closley related two groups are the more traits they share and the closer the branches are on the tree. Connection further back in the tree between two gorups the fewer common traits they share.
