Psyc 205 Test #1

Front 1

Define: Comparative Cognition

Back 1

Scientific Endeavor aimed at gaining broader scientific understanding of the nature and evol of cognition in humans and non human animals

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3 Hallmarks of Comparative Cognition

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1. Cognition - mental proces used in perceiving/remembering/thinking/understanding

2. Experimental - not always

3. Evolutionary framework - cog abilities evolved through nat select

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What are the 3 Scientific perspectives that influenced CC?

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1. Evolutionary

2. Experimental

3. Ethology

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3 Tenants of Darwin's Evol Theory

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1. Inherit traits from paretns

2. Random variations are spontaneous

3. Certain variations will be selected + be passed on, determined by natural selection based on fitness

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2 principles learned from Darwin

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1. Humans descended through variation/selection form other animals

2. If morphological similarities b/w species due to common ancestry, there are probs similarities in behavior

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Evolution produces ____, ____ and ______ but only _______ are the result of nat select

Exaptations = ?

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Adaptations, byproduct and random effects

Adaptations are only result of nat select

Ex = adatps to one enviro problem which then provide a fitness advantage in another sitch (ex feather, thermoreg --> flight)

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Byproduct =

Random Effect =

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B = side effect of adaptions, not result of nat select

RE = chance mutations that do not provide survival/reprodu advantage but may eventually be adaptive if enviro changes

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1. Speciation =

2. Species =

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1. when two groups of sepcies diverge to point they can no longer breed

2. groups of animals that can breed w/ e/o

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Continuity Hypothesis

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CH = trait diffs b/w animals an humans will be quantitative not qualitative - a diff in degree not kind - diff expression of same traits

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How is clever Hans effect elimanted in experiments?

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Double blind procedure

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Morgan's canon =

Behaviorism =

Radical Behaviorism =

Methodological Behaviorism =

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MC = principle that animal behavior shouldn't be interpreted in terms of higher cognitive processes when simpler explanation possible

B = psyc subdis that says behavior is only justifiable object in science

RB = state mentalistic states have no role in behavior

MB = experi approach w/ quantifiable measure + tight control of extran variables

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Kohler chimps to say...

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behaviors observed as result of insight and planning

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Ethology =

Behavior as ____ that should be described via _____

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E = study of the causes + adaptive value of animal behavior

bio trait via evolutionary theory

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Instincts =

FAP =

Imprinting =

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I - behavioral patterns that appear in full form the first time they're displayed (even if no previous experience w/ stim)

FAP - stereotyped instinctive behavior that occurs in rigid order + trigger by specific stim (egg roll)

Imp - type of learning, exposure to specific stim/events alters behavioral traits of the animal

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4 Questions of Ethology:

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1. What is the function of the behavior?

2. How did it develop across evol/compare to behavior of closerelated species?

3. How does it change over lifetime?

4. What internal mechs cause animal to respond in specific way?

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Behavioral Ecology

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Focused on ultimate causes of behavior

How behavioral diffs increase fitness of diff animals

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CC grew from ____ + _____

Grew out of ideas from ____ + _______

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Exper pscyh + behavioral ecology

Linguistics (age of language attain) + comp sci (comp models of info processing)

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Common Adaptation =

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convergence on the same solution via independent evol change (ex. finding food via foraging

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Gene =

All cells in body have ____ sets of chromo

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G = specific section of chromo made up of a combo of nucleotides - gene form defined by nuc sequence of the area it occupies chromo

2 sets

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CC related to these 2 fields of psych: ___ and ____

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Developmental psych - study of systematic changes that occur from birth to death

Behavioral Neurosci - relationship b/w brain function and behavior

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Neuroethology =

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study of how the NS controls natural behavior, evovled to solve fitness probs

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Chapter 2: Sensory Systems!!

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Blank

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Visual Adaptation =

3 examples: fish, biolum, nocturnal

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animals that inhabit enviros w/ diff pattern of light evolve diff visual sensitivities

1. Fish - red/yellow light absorbed in shallow water so many marine animals are more sensitive to blue spectrum

2. Biolm - use this to see ocean floor (organic rxn)

3. Nocturnal = larger pupils, more rods (so more sensitive to light, can't discriminate color)

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Eye placement P v P

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Predator - frontally placed eyes - great binocular vision (great depth perception), bad lateral vision

Prey - premits larger field of view (w/ reduced depth percept), can see behind them

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Sexual Dimorphism

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Trait/behavior that is distinctly diff when comparing males and females of same species

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Sensory Adaptation - snakes

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SA: allows diffs in sensry ability to occur with dif ecol circumstances

Snakes develop diff tendency to respond to cues most likely to lead to prey capture that differ among species wrt prey preference

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Sensory Drive Hypothesis =

bird example

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Traits showing adaptations are those that improve the ability to send and receive signals in the new enviro

ex. bird moves to darker enviro, female birds w/ greater visual accuity and males with more brighter feathers will evovle to be selected for

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Sensory Bias + paradox

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situations where individuals respond with increased vigor to stimuli that are exaggerate versions of naturally occuring stimuli

(white crested birds more attractive to females even though they never encountered such elaborate birds)

Paradox = no evolutionary advantage b/c exaggerated traits are not part of the animals nat enviro

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Sensory Exploitation + ex

Supernormal stim + ex

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Sensory signals that were important for one process have been coopted by another

ex. females borrowed the likeness to white feathers on the elaborate white feathered males b/c they use white feathers for nesting

SS = heightened response to exaggerated version of natural stimuli (large eggs in birds)

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2 summary principles of SS Evol

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1. animals only experience portion of the sensory world (reflective of evolutionary history of the species)

2. Sensory system evol is an adaptation (like physical traits)

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Sensitive Period =

Strabismus =

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SP = period in which experience dependent changes have profound and enduring effects on development (sight not fully recovered if born w/ cataracts v adults)

S = visual axis of eyes are misaligned causing infants to have good vision but eyes don't converge image leading to improper visual development

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Compensatory Plasticity Hypo =

advantage = ?

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CPH = loss/deficit in one sens leads to heightened response in another

appears to be developmental (ie if born blind, you develop better auditory ability)

Advantage = allows within lifetime adaptation to new sensory enviros (nat select may be too slow)

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2 Stages of Sensory system funciton:

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1. Detection - acquire info about sensory world

2. Processing - organize/transmit to other brain regions

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Detection steps - explain in general

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1. Soma generate signals and transmit AP along axon

2. AP travels all the way down to presynap terminal causing NT release

3. Crosses synapse and acts on postsynap receptors on other soma/dendrites

if the NT increases the probability of neuronal firings its excitatory (opposite for inhib)

4. Once reach sense organs, receptors translate signal to specific part of brain

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Processing:

1. each ___ has a pathway that terminates in ___

2. General principle of Brain organization + example

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1. Sense organ pathway ends in specific region of cerebral cortex

2. Size of cortical area devoted to a function is a reflection of its importance

ex. night hunting bats, echolocation, large auditory region

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2 Coding stim dimesions:

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1. Intensity

2. Duration

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Intensity coded 2 ways

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1. Frequency Coding - rate of cell firing (increase frequency = increase intensity) there is a max threshold that will prevent sensation

Population COding - increased # of firing sens receptors w/ increased intensity

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Coding Duration

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If constant - rate of cell fire declines (rapid or slow decline)

Slow adapt - fire a burst of APs when stim arrives but the slower while stim remains

Fast adapt - fire quickly on onset and offset of stim

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Sensations v perceptions

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S = when physical stim activate sense receptors and sens signals thru specialized circuits

P = interpretation of these signals when sense info is processed, organized and filtered in the CNS

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Psychophysics

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study of relation b/w sensation + perception, eplain how physical characters of a stim are interpreted by organisms

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Dark Adaptation

Camoflage

Kettlewell

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DA = threshold for detecting light drops as dark period increases

C = structural adapts allow a species to blend with its enviro

K = moths that adapted to pollution tainted trees slowly become more prominent

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Just Noticable Diff

proves what?

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JND = amount by which 2 stimuli must differ so that the diff can be detected

- Intensity increase = the intensity that will produce a JND

- Proves that perception does not reflect the absolutes of the world

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Blindsight + proves

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Paradoxical ability of cortically blind individs to locate a visual stim

Knowledge of perception of a stim can be seperated from perception of that stim

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Elemental v Ecological Theory of Perception

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Elemental - how individ units of sensory input are combined

Ecological - emphasize organism's interaction w/ enviro as determinant of perceptual experience

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Elemental:

Structuralism =

Feature Integration Theory =

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S = perceptions are created by combining/adding up the elements of sensations

FIT = elements of sensory input are coded at the initial stages of processing and then combined at higher levels to produce perceptual wholes

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Ecological

Optic Flow =

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OF = the movement of elements in a visual scene, relative to the observer

to allow animals to act upon/interact w/ surroundings

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Stimulus Filtering =

at level of _____

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SF: process of separating and extracting meaningful info from abundance/diversity of sensory cues in the enviro

at level of sense receptors

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Sign stimuli + ex

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SS: essential features of a stimuli which are neccessary to elicit a specific behavioral response

ex. pecking response critical for young bird's survival elicited by small red dot on parent's bill

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Looming

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escape response triggered by expansion of a visual stimuli that is always perceived as an approaching object - hard wired, not learned

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Attention =

3 types

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Mental process that selects which info will be processed further, allowing focus on particular stim/events (solves sensory overload problem)

1. Selective 2. Sustained 3. Divided

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Selective =

Search Image =

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SA: ability to attend to a limited range of sensory info while actively inhibiting competing input

SI = mental representation of a target, foraging animals scan enviro for stimuli that match the SI (gets stronger w/ experience)

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Sustained =

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SusA: ability to focus on one aspect of the enviro for extended periods of time

Can hinder ability to do anything else (forage, take care of young) so animals often live in large groups to spread tasks

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Divided

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DA = ability to process sensory input form more than one source simultaneously

Proves attention is limited - brain can only process a certain amount of info at any given time