Lecture 13 Flashcards
Define cognition
The process of learning, perception, memory, thinking and judgement.
Can animals understand concepts?
This is quite a controversial issue. Studies have suggested that some animals do as they can differentiate numbers and images. For example, horses have been found to understand when 2 symbols are the same by looking behind the matching symbol for food. However, this could be explained by operant conditioning, as they are positively reinforced when they get it right. Therefore, they may not explicitly understand that the two symbols are the same. Thus, to account for this, new stimuli should be added to see if they do understand the similarity. Chimps and birds in the crow family still pass the test when novel objects are introduced, suggesting that they do understand concepts.
Furthermore, due to the allospecific acquisitions of parrots, we can ask them questions in English and they can understand and respond. For example, Pepperberg found that Alex the parrot could pick the object that was the same and the object that was different when asked “what same?” or “what different?”. Alex could also categorise objects and the questions that Pepperberg asked were referential as they did not explicitly say what the object was, showing how he understood the concept. After this, Alex chose his reward; this social and functional input, allowed him to acquire communication skills more effectively as there was purpose.
Animals can also estimate quantities without training. For example, picking the cup with more food in it. This is hypothesised to be a result of foraging cognition. They have developed these skills to be adapted to the physical world. This foraging cognition has also been related to object permanence; primates, birds and pets have an understanding of something’s existence when it is visibly displaced. However, only primates and potentially pets pass the test when the object is displaced out of sight.
What 4 sensorimotor stages develop at similar times for humans and chimps?
Reflexes, mouthing, reaching and object permanence. However, human infants combine objects to modify each other more than chimps do.
Discuss the Broaden and Build theory
Fredrickson argued that positive and negative emotions need to be treated with different theoretical inputs. Thus, she created the Broaden and Build theory to explain the use of positive emotions and she believed that these emotions serve over a long period. The theory explores how positive emotions help one solve problems in terms of personal growth and development. They broaden one’s mindset and build on the endurance of personal resources (physical, social, intellectual and psychological resources). For example, joy induces play, interest induces the urge to explore and so on. Whereas negative emotions narrow one’s mindset, e.g. fear induces the specific action tendency of fight or flight. One’s broadened mindset can lead them to discover novel actions, ideas and social bonds, thus, resulting in them building on their personal resources.
Compare research on ape cognition and human cognition
Tomasello argues that we both understand the world in similar ways; a physical world, such as foraging and a social world, such as competition. However, they comment that humans also have unique sets of cognition such as collaborating, learning through social transmission and sharing cultural information with one another. We mainly differ from them in terms of the non-competitive social world.
Richardson argues that humans have a highly flexible set of social cognitive skills, which allows us to cope with new challenges effectively.
The Vygotskian intelligence hypothesis argues that primate cognition is driven by competition but human cognition is driven by cooperation. However, it is important to note that primates can still cooperate, it is just a different level of acquisition. Furthermore, other animals can cooperate also.
Discuss cooperation in animals
Lion cooperate whilst they hunt for prey, in order to effectively catch prey that is bigger than them.
Plotnik found that elephants can show evidence of complex cooperation, for example, they pull ropes together in order to get food and when alone, they wait for another elephant to help them.
Give an example of orangutans exploiting each other
Voelter found that mothers can exploit their offspring for food. For example, if the food is in a space that they cannot fit in, then they push their child in to get the food and pull them back out before they have time to eat it. The adult then eats the food. This is an example of social tool use.
Discuss self recognition in animals
Mirror mark tests allow us to see if animals recognise themselves. The researcher secretly marks the animals and observes how they react when they see their reflection. If they touch the mark when seeing their reflection or try to look at it more closely, then they recognise that the reflection is themselves. Elephants, dolphins, apes and infants pass this test. This brings one to question whether these animals feel empathy, if they recognise themselves and know they are different to everyone else. However, it could just be that they recognise their own behaviour when looking in the mirror, rather than understand their unique psychological state. Additionally, when showing a child a recording of themselves doing the mirror mark test, they fail to understand that it is them. This means they say things like “There is a sticker on her head”.
What are the main components of speech production?
Prosody aka melody
Syntax aka grammar
Semantics aka meaning
Discuss animals learning human language
Some animals can understand semantic cues and use symbols to communicate with us.
Non-human primates are unable to replicate the human language due to their larynx position being higher and because humans have more voluntary vocal control.
Viki the chimp could produce limited language such as mama, papa and up, after being raised in a human environment.
Washoe was able to learn sign language and communicate effectively. However, Washoe may have been imitating the researchers rather than understand the language. Also, it might have just been associative learning; understand that if he does this behaviour then he will get food. Washoe was also raised in a human environment.
Kanzi was not raised in a human environment. He was taught to use a lexigram and began using it spontaneously to communicate. He was not taught from birth unlike the others. On top of this, he had basic comprehension of English language, similar to the abilities of a 2-year old. He could form basic sentences and request for things he wanted.
Discuss Hauser’s study
Previously it has been found that human infants can determine which syllable sequences form potential words, showing their complex ability to acquire language. This was then tested on tamarins (new world monkeys) and it was found that they also had this ability to compute particular aspects of serial order. However, this study is extremely anthropomorphic as tamarins would not need to differentiate between syllables in the wild and thus, this ability might be unique to the laboratory.
Discuss Caceres’ study
They explored how cognition differs between humans and chimps by looking biologically. There were 169 genes that were expressed differently in the cerebral cortex, which mostly involved up-regulation in the human cortex. The higher expression belonged to wide variety of functional classes, potentially explaining the increased ability of cognition in humans and showing that the main differences are down to elevated levels of neuronal activity.
Discuss Enard’s study
They found out why humans have a unique ability to produce language compared to our recent ancestors. It was found humans had 2 mutations in a gene for linguistic ability which shows how we became more capable of producing vocalisations and organised speech. Furthermore, humans with damage to this gene have difficulties acquiring expressive and receptive language, with other parts of their cognition remaining unaffected.
Discuss Cantlon’s study
They found that rhesus monkeys could successfully do basic arithmetic. When shown 2 sets of dots, they could successfully pick a stimulus that had the sum of the dots on, suggesting that they could successfully add them. It could be argued that this was just because of basic associations where the monkeys learnt what the correct responses were. However, the researchers accounted for this by introducing the monkeys to novel arithmetic and rewarding the regardless of their choice. The monkeys’ correct responses here were still significantly higher than chance.
Discuss Tincoff’s study
They explored differences in abilities of humans and tamarins in differentiating languages. It was found that tamarins were able to differentiate japanese and polish but not english and dutch. It is suggested that this is because japanese and polish have different rhythmic classes but english and dutch don’t. Thus, tamarins differentiate languages based on rhythm rather than the language itself, whereas humans have evolved abilities specifically for language. This makes it clear how language varies between humans and our relatives, suggesting that we have higher abilities in cognition but cognition is still present in tamarins.
