Comparative Cognition

Question 1

Defintion of Comparative Cognition

Answer 1

• Umbrella term for many fields
• “…(aim of) understanding cognition across the animal kingdom including how it works, what it is good for in nature, and how it evolved” (Shettleworth, 2010)

Question 2

3 fields in Comparative Cognition

Answer 2

1. Evolutionary psychology: an approach applying evolutionary principles to the working of the human mind
2. Comparative psychology: study of animal and human cognition; emphasis on cross-species comparison
3. Socio-biology: systematic study of the biological bases of social behaviours

Question 3

Natural Selection & Darwin

Answer 3

Made 3 observations:

• Individuals differ
• Some of these traits are heritable
• Not all offspring survive

Resulting in

Inference: Individuals differences affect the probability that offspring will survive and reproduce

Question 4

Natural Selection

Answer 4

• Acts of variations of phenotype (observable trait or characteristics; includes morphological structures, neural structures, neural properties and behaviours)

Question 5

Phenotypes

Answer 5

• Produced by organism’s genotype in combination with environement and activity-dependent mechanisms

Question 6

Genotypes

Answer 6

• Total collection of genes within individual
• Gene: the only heritable part of the natrual selection equation

Question 7

Adaptation

Answer 7

• A phenotype arising from genetic variation that increases the probability of an individual producing offspring

Question 8

Divergent Evolution

Answer 8

• Evolutionary pattersn in which two species share ancestry that gradually become different
• Develop novel characteristics and they take opportunity in the new environments they fidn themselves in
• They adapt to the environment they are in

Question 9

Convergent Evolution

Answer 9

• Evolution process have dirven different lines towards having similar features because of the environment they both share
• This is homoplasy where physical resemblance of features because of a resemblance between adaptations not because of a shares ancestor that have the same traits

Question 10

Analogy

Answer 10

• Similarity of function
• Not neccessarily similar in appearance
• Not evidence of evolved from common ancestry

Question 11

Homology

Answer 11

• Resemblance based on common ancestry
• Adapted to provide different functions

Question 12

What do we have in common with worms (Carnorhabdtis Elegans)

Answer 12

• Cells, organelles, intracellular fluid, homeostasis
• Neurons, action potentials, synapses & their modulation
• Genetics (genome ~ 40% homologous
• Basic patterns of behaviourRhythms
  
  • Ultradian (recurrent cycles in 24 hour cycle - e.g. Defecation
  • Circadian (endogenously driven 24 hour cycle - e.g. Locomotory speed
• Basic functions: foraging, alimentation, mating
• Hierarchy of needs

Question 13

Closet living relative

Answer 13

• Common chimpanzee and Bonobo (monkey)
• They differ from us from just over 1% of our DNA

Question 14

Different methods of navigation

Answer 14

• “Dead Reckoning” & path integration
• Ultrasound
• Magnetic Field
• External Reference points (landmarks, sun, stars)
• Leaving traces (e.g. Odour)
• Remembering the path/time taken

Question 15

Researchers testing hypothesis that ants use idiothetic cues in form of a step counter

Answer 15

• Caught ants after they made their journey to their food and then removed their nest from its location
• Three groups
  
  • Shortened legs (stumps)
  • Normal legs
  • Elongated legs (stilts)
• Stump group: undershot (started exhibiting nest searching behaviours before they would have come to the removed nest)
• Control group: correct (started exhibiting nest searching behaviour where the nest would have been if it had not been removed)
• Stilt group: overshot (started exhibiting nest searching behaviours further beyond where the nest was)
• Length of leg affected the distance traversed and indicates that the ants had been using the number of steps counted as a way to measure distance

Question 16

Food storing species of birds

Answer 16

• Twice as large of a hippocampus in realtion to species that don’t store food

Question 17

Allometry

Answer 17

• Describes how triats or processes scale with one another

Question 18

Inclusion of allometry

Answer 18

• Allows us to dervice something called a measure of encephalisation
• We can look at how much a species deviates from the observed or expected relationship for those in its class
• So what is the normal relationship for a class between brain mass in the given group and then how much does a species deviate from that

Question 19

Encephalization quotient

Answer 19

• The ratio of the actual mass of the brain and the expected mass of the brain given a particualr body weight
• Shows that there are other animals that have higher encephalization quotient then species that we would think to be more intelligent.

Question 20

Cortex Expansion

Answer 20

• Primates have much more of their brain dedicated to being cortex compared to mammals
• Their are differences between primates

Question 21

Neuronal Density

Answer 21

• Barton suggests we should look at neuronal measures, not size
• Herculaneum-Houzel suggests that size doesn’t link to neuronal density in a way that is consistent or common across all mammals.
• So you can’t infer the neuronal content as increasing just because the size is increasing
• Roth and Dicke (2005), suggest that because you have thick neurons in a high density packed together, that they have a higher conduction velocity, they have smaller distances, therefore quicker functioning and therefore the half a better or information processing capacity

Question 22

Cortico-cerebellar connections

Answer 22

Question 23

Learned and innate behaviour

Answer 23

• Marler and Peters (1989)
  
  • Pre-existing selective processes in animal that interact with specific experiences to produce learning outcomes from songs in two species of sparrows
  • Male song sparrow (melospiza melodia) and swamp sparrows (melospiza georgiana) need to hear species-specific song early in life in order to sing it when they mature
  • Played song sparrow songs and swamp sparrow songs to isolated young males of both species in the laboratory
  • Swamp sparrow learned only swap sparrow songs and song sparrow had a strong preference to learn song sparrow songs

Question 24

Associated learning

Answer 24

• The learning that results from experiencing contingencies, or predicitive relationships, between events

Question 25

Four questions often referrred to as Tinbergen’s 4 whys, can be asked about any behaviour

Answer 25

1. Immediate causation
2. Development in the individual
3. Present-day function
4. Evolution

• Complementary to each other and contribute to a complete understanding of behaviour
• Cognitive mechanisms such as perception and memory are immediate causes of behaviour; learning is part of behaviour development

Question 26

How cognition and behaviour are shaped by natural selection (Shettleworth)

Answer 26

Question 27

Featured in our ‘recent’ evolution

Answer 27

• Forgaing:
  
  • Diet variations - varied cognitive demands, (Milton, 1981)
  • Evidence for relative brain size relationship mixed, (Dunbar, 1995 vs Barton, 1996)
• Social:
  
  • Diet variations - varied cognitive demands, (Milton, 1981)
  • Evidence for relative brain size relationship mixed, (Dunbar, 1995 vs Barton, 1996)
• Language and Communcation

Question 28

Tool use

Answer 28

• Insight
• Instrumental learning
• Imitation and social learning

Question 29

Tool use - Insight

Answer 29

• Implies some sort of reason/working out
• Understanding of unseen causes

Question 30

Tool use - Instrumental learning

Answer 30

• Associative learning procedures
• Effects of a specific behaviour will either increase of decrease the probability of the behaviour occuring again

Question 31

Tool use - Imiatation and social learning

Answer 31

• Imitation: form of behaviour that could be specie specific, requires an understanding of intentions and outcomes
• Social learning: term covering a number of aspects of conseqences of living in social group

Question 32

Insight Wolfgang Kohler (1925)

Answer 32

• Suspended bananas on the roof just out of reach of the chimpanzee and they wanted to see if they could get to the bananas (could they make use of their surroundings)
• After a time they did
• This was questioned if this was insight

Question 33

Heinrich and Bugnyar (2007)

Answer 33

• Tested insight on naive ravens
• Sequence of steps required
  
  • Reach down and grasp, pull up, put on perch, step on string to hold it (& repeat)
  • Naïve Ravens (not been trained on the task) will pull string up to draw food closer
  • However, in a 2005 study the Naïve Ravens had to pull down on the string for food - they found that Naïve Ravens do not pull DOWN on string to draw food closer

Question 34

Taylor and colleagues (2010) - Insight?

Answer 34

• Devised new experiment from Heinrich and Bugnyar, (2007) on naive crows
• New experiment manipuated whether visual feedback was available or not
• Bird is on a perch and the string with the food on it is held within a hole - so it’s not something that is visible to the birds, restricted feedback.
• Then they created another scenario where they provided a mirror that did allow visual feedback.
• The experienced crows solved the version (A) bit slower and with more errors than the would in a normal string pulling task, but they were still able to do it.
• Whereas naïve crows, either failed or they solved it by trial and error. But when visual feedback was available with the mirror condition, then some naïve crows were able to perform the task just like experienced crows.
• Suggest that this shows spontaneous string pulling. It might not be based on insight or logic, but just on operant conditioning and dependent on a perceptual motor feedback cycle.

Question 35

Holzhaider et al. (2008)

Answer 35

• Investigating just how much crows attend to functional properties of the tools that the routinely use in the wild
• They used sticks to extract grubs from holes in the ground
• Experimenters lay down non-functional tools, ones which had no barbs on them and then ones with barbs turned upside down (non-functional orientation)
• They found that crows didn’t do what would be expected if they understood their actions
• They flipped the tool when it was in the right direction but just not working.
• They tried to use it when it was in the wrong direction.
• They tried to use the tools that didn’t have barbs on them.
• When they had the opportunity they would create their own tools instead
• New Caledonian crows are raised in captive rather than being wild crows - so they were naïve to everything.
• It was shown that they did have sort of inherited predispositions for basic tool use

Question 36

Explain this image by referring to learning in a social environment

Answer 36

• Bird of left is experienced, bird on right is young
• Experience bird is exposed by predator
• Experience bird will exhibit moping behaviour (flopping around, noise and movement to disturb predator) this behaviour is learned over time
• Young bird is not looking at a predator but by experience response, it will then exhibit moping behaviour
• This is learned through observational conditioning

Question 37

Racheting

Answer 37

• Changes introduced in one generation are adopted and further elaborated in the next in a process of cumulative change

Question 38

Tennie, Call & Tomasello (2009)

Answer 38

• Human culture accumaltes modifications over time
• Humans:social learning more process than product oriented (Chimpanzee learning product oriented)
• Humans employ cooperation and active teaching
• Social motivations for conformity (humans are driven to be social and that the Imitate sometimes purely for social reasons and that they have a strong inclination for social conformity and therefore, they’re likely to actively teach, but also to imitate those around them)