Lecture 1 Flashcards

1
Q

What is cognition

A
Mechanisms that animals use to:
Acquire information
Process information
Store information
Act on information
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2
Q

High level cognitive processes

A

Insight, reasoning and planning

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3
Q

Low level cognitive processes

A

Attention and motivation

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4
Q

What is behaviour

A

The outcome of cognition

The sum of cognitive processes is behaviour

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5
Q

What is intelligence?

A

The ability of a person to use many cognitive traits (not just one or two)

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6
Q

What makes something adaptive?

A

Favoured by natural selection, which operates on phenotypes

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7
Q

What are the two criteria for a trait to be favoured by natural selection?

A
  1. There is variation among individuals in expression of the trait
  2. The trait is heritable
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8
Q

Heritability

A

Trait variance due to genetics / total variance of traits

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9
Q

What was the result of the Stirling et al. (2002) study on the heritability of behaviour?

A

Heritability of behaviour is as strong as life history or morphological traits

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10
Q

Why is the anthropocentric / psychological approach of studying behaviour not used when studying animal behaviour?

A

Morgan’s Canon (1894)
Cannot interpret an action as the outcome of exercise of a higher psychic faculty (eg. reasoning) if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale

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11
Q

What is the best way to study behaviour and cognition?

A

Biological approach

Why does an animal do that?

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12
Q

What is ethology?

A

Biological study of behaviour

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13
Q

What are Tinbergen’s four whys?

A

1963

  1. Causation: what is causing animals to behave in a particular way? (Proximate)
  2. Development: how did that particular behaviour develop? (Proximate)
  3. Adaptation/function: how does the behaviour impact on the survival and reproduction of the organism? (Ultimate)
  4. Evolution: is this behaviour also expressed in related species? Why did it evolve like this? (Ultimate)
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14
Q

Is causation ultimate or proximate?

A

Proximate - what is causing a behaviour?

But cognition has adaptive value, and evolutionary history

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15
Q

Learned and innate behaviour

A

No behaviour strictly learned or entirely innate - modified by environment

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16
Q

Function of birdsong

A
  1. Species recognition
  2. Individual recognition
  3. Territorial defences
  4. Quality advertisement for mating success
17
Q

Two phase acquisition of bird song

A
  1. Sensory acquisition phase (memorisation from species dog, sensitive period, sometimes age limited)
  2. Sensori-motor phase (practiced, refined, need for auditory feedback)