Wk12: Evolution

Question 1

Primates

Answer 1

• Rely on vision over smell
• Colour vision
• Encephalised - larger brains
• 5 fingers + nails
• mainly omnivores

Question 2

Humans are monkeys

(apes actually)

Answer 2

• 99.4% shared dna to chimpanzees
• chimps closer to humans than gorillas
• shared ancestor - not decended from chimps

Question 3

Physical evolution

Answer 3

• Change in biological traits over time
• Traits more suited to environment more likely to survive and reproduce

Question 4

Evolution of mind

Answer 4

• Continuity of mental capacity
• via natural selection

Question 5

What are the problems with current progress?

Answer 5

• Discontinuity = tries to justify humans as exceptions
• Continuity = tries to justify Darwin/ humans as animals
• Difficulty identifying absence of mental traits

Question 6

Animal consciousness

Answer 6

• If neurobiology is the same; assumed same experience
• Same neurobiology for pain experience

Question 7

Animal intelligence

Answer 7

• Romanes - Used anecdotal evidence to write about comparative psychology
• Principle of Parsimony

Question 8

Lloyd’s cannon

Answer 8

• Parsimony principle
• Occams Razor for behaviour
• Assume simplest reason for behaviour
• Clever Hans

Question 9

What is means-end reasoning?

Answer 9

• Insight
• Doing untaught, unconditioned behaviours to attain a goal

Question 10

What is the machivellian hypothesis of evolutionary intelligence?

Answer 10

• social intelligence is the prime factor
• neocortex size correlates with group size

Question 11

What are some primate social behaviours?

Answer 11

• grooming and group living
• social heirarchy
• tracking third-party relations
• tactical deception

Question 12

How do primate social behaviours influence intelligence?

Answer 12

• interaction of other living beings encourages metacognition
• social cooperation is a combination of multiple individuals for a goal; like multiple items for a goal

Question 13

Animal imitation behaviours

Answer 13

Animals engage in play when we imitate behaviours (has to be identical behaviour)

Question 14

Animal social inheritance

Answer 14

• Cultural behaviours passed down
• May explain why some chimp groups crack nuts with logs, others rocks, despite both told available

Question 15

Animal Language and communication

Answer 15

• Sign language, taught to various successes
• commands understood, cno onversation
• Vervet monkey have different alarm calls for different predators
• Shows communication; not syntactic bus still language
• Little vocal (and facial) control, more in the hands

Question 16

Animal self-awareness

Answer 16

• chimps, gorrillas, apes (great apes) pass MSR
• Asking Koko “who are you?” refers to “Koko”, “gorilla”, “me”

Question 17

What is pretence?

Answer 17

• pretend-play
• primary representation of reality (tea cup)
• secondary representation of reality (with imaginary tea in it)
• Humans and apes participate

Question 18

What is phylogenetic reconstruction?

Answer 18

Did these species evolve this trait independently of each other, or is it a trait of a common ancestor?
* homology vs analogy
* Evolutionary parsimony (occam)
* Secondary Representation