comparative cognition

Question 1

what are some of the difficulties with studying complex cognition in animals

Answer 1

• overcoming anthropocentricity
• defining cognitive processes
• determining quantitative or qualitative differences

Question 2

Clever hans example

Answer 2

clever hans = horse
- owner discovered that hans could understand german and do cognitive tasks people normally wouldn’t associate with horses

Question 3

different examples of communication and language

Answer 3

–> non-human animals communicate with each other. they use smells, sounds, gestures to exchange information
Bees: waggle dance
dogs: gestures and odours signal sexual and aggressive readiness
whales and dolphins : clicks and whistles
vervet monkeys: different vocalisations signal the presence of particular threats - hawk, snake, leopard

Question 4

definitions for when communications becomes a language

Answer 4

• learning a set of abstract or arbitrary symbols eg: there is nothing table like about the word table, but its what we associate with table
• using these symbols to express thoughts or to indicate objects and events that may or may not be present eg: dirty car, know what it looks like even if you can’t see it
• learning rules associated with the order of these symbols (syntax) eg: how we arrange these symbols changes the meaning
• using syntax to generate different meaningful sentences

Question 4

mechanisms behind communication between humans and animals

Answer 4

• these forms of communication are not normally considered language
• they lack the extended vocabulary and the syntactic and semantic structures that allow a language to be flexible and creative

Question 5

language in apes: speech

Answer 5

–> early studies of ape’s language abilities tried to teach chimpanzees to talk, raising chimpanzees in homes and mimicking the rearing of a human child
- The kelloggs (1933) raised Gua alongside their son. Gua learned to understand some commands, but never uttered any english words
- The Hayes (1951) raised Vicki. She learnt to make three “recognisable” words (papa, mama, and cup), but only with great difficulty and patient training

Question 6

why is harder for chimpanzees to speak like humans

Answer 6

–> the chimpanzee is not anatomically suited for human speech
Human anatomy:
- teeth are upright, evenly spaced and touch each other
- mouth is relatively small, can be open and shut rapidly
- lip muscles are more highly developed
- tongue is thick, muscular, and highly mobile, and can restrict the air flow in a number of ways

Question 7

Gardners and washoe experiment

Answer 7

–> tried teaching sign language to chimps
- began in infancy to establish the equivalent of a parent-child bond

During first year:
- learning one word at a time. fewer “naming” and more “action” words than human children

by end of first yr:
- began making combinations of signs - “more fruit”, “out open please hurry”

by four:
produce about 160 signs, but understanding more extensive. although 2 and 3 word combinations occurred, little evidence of syntax

Question 8

terrace experiment with Nim Chimpsky

Answer 8

–> study sign language of Nim Chimpsky. his results and interpretations of others findings pointed to severe deficits in chimp language

1. very low numbers of morphemes (words) per utterance
2. Nim’s communications were much less informative than childrens
3. no evidence of syntactic organisation
4. many signings seemed cued by the human teacher

• research area became highly emotionally charged and extremely controversial

Question 9

symbol based language experiment

Answer 9

Kanzi- Pygmy chimp (Bonobo) mother training on keyboard, but kanzi only sporadic interest
- at 2.5 yrs separated from mother, unexpected interest in keyboard. appeared to have about 10 symbols already
- reduced reward-based learning for more naturalistic training
- kanzi can produce language using a lexigram vocabulary of about 200 symbols
- he also refers to objects not present
- kanzi understands not only lexigrams, but some understanding of spoken language, seems to understand about 500 spoken words
- kanzi also seems to understand simple sentences; that is, he has some grasp of syntax
- as good as a 2yr old human

Question 10

what are the different comprehensions of main sentence components

Answer 10

• agent comprehension
• verb comprehension
• object comprehension
• recipient comprehension

Question 11

what is comparative cognition

Answer 11

a field that studies the cognitive abilities and mechanisms of non-human animals, comparing them to human cognition