Wk 8 - Children

Question 1

Ramachandran has argued that the human brain was already…(x1)

Answer 1

‘Pre-adapted’ (grown to sufficient capacity) to enable the rapid spread of innovations/culture that would have been triggered by critical environmental factors

Question 2

What is one potential explanation for a lack of imitation in monkeys, despite having motor neurons? (x3)

Answer 2

Potential early emergence as a motor-mirror system
That became more complex due to some kind of genetic change, leading to
Increased ability to learn, teach, imitate

Question 3

Explain the ‘free-rider’ problem? (x4)

Answer 3

For individuals to learn on their own they have to invest their own resources
But other individual can imitate at no extra cost to themselves
For individuals then, it is better to engage in social learning
But if everyone does this no new knowledge will be acquired

Question 4

Coincident emergence of cumulative culture, Mousterean tools and childhood life-stage are found in…(x1 species plus timeframe)

Answer 4

Neanderthalensis

200-30 K yrs ago

Question 5

Dean and Cole (2013) have shown differences in chimp and human dental development, in that…(x3)

Answer 5

Growth rates show age of individual
Chimps rates have later tooth eruption and peak velocity later than humans, and
The gap between the two is shorter

Question 6

The Striae of Retzius are…(x3)

Answer 6

Lines of Retzius
The way your teeth develop is similar to rings on trees – use them to date teeth
Ameloblasts deposit tooth enamel in a circadian manner, which tells us tooth growth rates and dental development

Question 7

General paeleoanthropological agreement is that there is a common chimpanzee-like dental development in…(x4)
Meaning that…(x1)

Answer 7

Lower Paleolithic hominins, from 
Ardipithecus ramidus, through 
Australopithecus afarensis to 
Homo erectus
Scant evidence to suggest a childhood was present before .5 mya

Question 8

Dean et al 2001 compared the dental enamel thickness and formation times of modern humans and several ancestral species, finding that…(x3)
Which suggests that…(x1)

Answer 8

Apes have shortest formation time, and thinnest enamel
Overlapping largely, but slightly longer/thicker for early homo
Neanderthals become separate earlier on, and overlap with the shorter/thinner edge of sapien distribution
Neanderthals may have had first emergence of childhood

Question 9

Bogin (1990) has argued that childhood provides a period for…(x2)
Which leads to…(x3)

Answer 9

Establishment of student-teacher roles, and much practice
Creative recombination of learned behaviours for novel situations
Pedagogy and discovery/creativity

Question 10

Takahashi et al 92014) define creativity as…(x1)

Answer 10

• Ability to re-imagine an observed state of affairs as something other than what it strictly is, or transfer it into another context

Question 11

Takahashi et al (2014) examined creativity and imitation in a series of tasks involving…(x5)
Finding…(x2)
Concluding…(x1)

Answer 11

First put the balls in case in certain way, trial and error,
Create - Need to get over functional fixedness:
How to reach the second rope while holding the first;
How to make candle-holder from match-box and pin-board;
Imitate: watch video of getting wire rings apart, then do
Some correlation between creativity measures,
But not across wire tasks
Maybe imitation and creativity are separate mechanisms – maybe not linked in the same individuals – so innovators get on with creating

Question 12

What characteristics define pretend play? (x2)

Which emerges at age…(x1)

Answer 12

Applying their knowledge base to symbolically manipulate objects and their properties, and
Allow their imagination, rather than the stimulus itself, to dominate their behaviour
From end-ish of second year

Question 13

Haight and Miller (1993) studied the amount of time children spend in pretend play, finding…(x4)

Answer 13

• Starts 1 min/hr at 1 yr old
• 4 min/hr at 2yo
• 9 min/hr by 3yo
• then ~13 min/hr by 4yo

Question 14

Pretence means that children need to…(x3)

Answer 14

Come up with scenario, then negotiate with partner, then maintain the pretence

Question 15

What indirect evidence is there for links between childhood and adult creativity?(x3)

Answer 15

Children with imaginary friends are more inclined to fantasy-play and creativity
Adults who had imaginary friend outperform other on various creativity indices
And those in creative adult careers report higher occurrence of imaginary childhood friends

Question 16

Do chimps pretend? (x1 plus explaing eg evidence x3)

Answer 16

Maybe have a ltd capacity, but nothing like complexity/universality of pretence in children
Viki impersonated her ‘mother,
One wild chimp spotted twice ‘parenting’ a log
Kanzi etc

Question 17

Causal usage functions are…

Answer 17

Related to objects being used functionally, and
They have affordances – a task to which the object is obviously suited, can be worked out by examining them
Different from status functions

Question 18

Joint pretending entails…(x3)

Answer 18

Respecting implications of your pretence stipulations as part of a joint we-intention (e.g., ‘in our pretence the cup is “full” now …):
Kids don’t violate the fantasy, because then it falls apart –
Needs agreement and respect for other

Question 19

Status functions are…(x5)

Answer 19

Meanings/value constructed, 
Agreed within group/culture, but 
Not really negotiable
Would never work out its purpose – has no functional value
X counts as Y in context C

Question 20

Rakoczy (2008) argued that early social pretence is…

Answer 20

A form of collective we-intentionality involving joint status assignment and thus embodying the basic structure of institutional phenomena

Question 21

Southerland and Friedman have connected knowledge acquisition with pretend play in a study involving…(x3)
Finding…(x1)
Leading to the conclusion…(x1)

Answer 21

This is a nerp (puppet)
Nerps don’t like carrots
‘‘Here is a picture of a nerp, and I am going to ask you some questions about nerps.’’ (Picture looks a bit like the nerp puppet)
They choose corn over carrots for the pictured animal at higher than control rates
That kids pretend because it allows them to learn about the world - natural pedagogy

Question 22

What evidence do we have for when artistic pursuits began? (x5)

Answer 22

Sculptures from 33kya
Bone and ivory flutes from 35kya
Punctured shells from 80kya - jewellery? Barter?
Ochre engravings from 100kya
Berekhat Ram from 233kya - dubious...

Question 23

Joordens et al 2014 reported the oldest known ‘art’/tool use in…(x2)
Which is important find because it means that…(x2)

Answer 23

Shells with thatched engravings/markings, and sings of prying open with tools
Dated at 430-540kya - middle Pleistocene era
Homo erectus, not sapiens must have made them, and so
Had tools, innovation but still no cumulative culture till Neanderthalensis…

Question 24

Given our understandings of childhood and pretence, what can we conclude about the emergence of the mirror system? (x3)

Answer 24

Perhaps childhood is the genetic tipping point that provided the opportunity for
Increased sophistication of the mirror system, and
Cognitive shifts and pretence that enabled cumulative culture