Practice Test Flashcards
(23 cards)
What are the three conditions required for natural selection to occur? Describe each briefly.
- Variability - Differences in traits within a population.
- Competition - Organisms compete for limited resources.
- Heritability - Traits must be passed from parents to offspring.
How is siblicide compatible with evolutionary theory?
Siblicide can be an adaptive behavior when resources are scarce. If eliminating a sibling increases the surviving offspring’s chances of survival and reproduction, the genes promoting siblicide may be naturally selected.
Why do some argue that nativist accounts are unparsimonious? What is a problem with this view?
Nativist accounts assume many built-in cognitive structures, which some argue require more assumptions than empiricist accounts. However, assuming all abilities are learned may also require complex assumptions about learning mechanisms.
Why does our fear of snakes vs. scissors present a problem for behaviorism?
Behaviorism suggests fears are learned from direct experience. However, we fear snakes (which seldom harm us) but not scissors (which frequently cause injury). This suggests some fears are evolutionarily ingrained rather than learned.
Describe one piece of evidence that led Piaget to conclude that infants lack object permanence.
Piaget found that infants under 8 months do not search for hidden objects, suggesting they believe the object ceases to exist.
Describe one piece of evidence that suggests infants do have object permanence.
Violation of Expectation studies show that infants look longer when an object disappears unexpectedly, suggesting they mentally represent the object.
What explains the discrepancy between Piaget’s object permanence studies and looking-time studies?
Piaget’s tasks required motor coordination and planning, which younger infants lack. Looking-time studies reveal cognitive abilities without requiring manual search.
What is an advantage and a disadvantage of using path integration over landmark-based navigation?
Advantage: Allows an animal to return home efficiently without visible landmarks.
Disadvantage: Small errors accumulate, leading to drift over long distances.
How do desert ants determine the distance back to their nest? Provide experimental evidence.
Ants use a ‘pedometer’ by counting their steps. Experiments showed that ants with artificially lengthened legs overshot their nest, while ants with shortened legs undershot it.
What is the developmental progression in humans for using landmark cues vs. geometric cues in navigation?
Infants and young children rely on geometric cues first. Around age 5-6, they integrate landmarks, likely due to language development.
What did Sovrano et al. (2002) find about fish navigation that differs from rats and human toddlers?
Fish can use geometric and landmark cues simultaneously, whereas rats and toddlers prioritize geometric cues.
Why is the Piraha people’s ability to represent small numbers but not large ones important?
It suggests that exact number representation requires linguistic symbols and that large-number cognition is not purely innate.
What are the three cognitive systems for representing numbers?
- Object Tracking System - Tracks small, exact quantities.
- Magnitude System - Estimates approximate quantities.
- Language System - Enables precise numerical representation.
Describe an experiment showing object tracking in infants or animals.
Infants correctly track up to 3 objects but fail with larger numbers, suggesting a capacity-limited system.
Which numerical abilities cannot be explained by object tracking?
- Approximate arithmetic in monkeys and infants (e.g., 10+5 ≠ 5+10 confusion).
- Ratio-based discrimination in large number comparisons (e.g., 10 vs. 20 but not 10 vs. 12).
What does it mean that ‘form is separate from meaning’ in human language?
The same meaning can be conveyed using different words and structures (e.g., ‘Obama’ vs. ‘44th president’).
What are three essential features of human language? Do any animals show these features?
- Arbitrary Symbols - Found in some animals (e.g., prairie dogs).
- Generativity - Not found in animal communication.
- Compositional Syntax - Partially found in some species, like Campbell’s monkeys.
Describe the communication system of one non-human species and compare it to human language.
Vervet monkeys have distinct alarm calls for different predators but lack syntax and recursion, making their communication less flexible than human language.
What is Quine’s Quandary (Gavagai Problem), and how do children solve it?
There are infinite possible meanings for a new word. Children use constraints like the Whole Object Assumption and Mutual Exclusivity to narrow down meanings.
Is a capuchin monkey giving false alarm calls an example of deception? Why or why not?
Not necessarily. The monkey may benefit from group confusion rather than intending to deceive. Controlled experiments show mixed evidence for deception in primates.
How do scrub jays predict where other jays will steal their food?
Scrub jays that have stolen food before take extra precautions in hiding their food, suggesting they simulate another jay’s perspective.
Why do infants pass the false belief task in looking-time studies but fail in manual-response tasks?
Looking-time studies suggest implicit understanding. Manual tasks require executive function skills, which develop later.
List two fundamental differences between animate agents and inanimate objects that infants understand.
- Agents move in goal-directed ways (evidence: infants expect agents to move efficiently toward a goal).
- Agents react to contingent interactions (evidence: infants expect agents to respond to social cues).
