Term
| Why are primate brains so large? |
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Definition
-brains = expensive (2% of body weight, 20% of metabolic costs).
-influences social interactions as well. |
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Term
| Selective pressures favouring large brains |
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Definition
1. Selective pressures related to social factors.
2. selective pressures related to ecological factors. |
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Term
| Social factors - SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE HYPOTHESIS |
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Definition
-intelligence linked to comp. pressures of GROUP LIVING and complex social interactions.
-ability to navigate in this complex world rewarded behavioural flexibility.
-could have favoured expansion of brain parts related to learning and planning. |
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Term
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Definition
A. Cognitive skills associated with FRUGIVORY.
-good learning skills required to judge ripeness, toxicity, nutritional content, etc.
-good memory required because of patchy distribution in time and space. |
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Term
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Definition
B. Cognitive skills associated with EXTRACTED FOODS.
-primates rely on extracted foods that require complex processing techniques (nuts, termites, etc.)
-extracted foods PROTEIN-RICH |
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Term
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Definition
C. Cognitive skills linked to INNOVATION and BEHAVIORAL FLEXIBILITY.
-emphasizes ability to INVENT appropriate solutions to novel problems.
-ability to LEARN new behaviours from others.
-deals with both ECOLOGICAL and SOCIAL challenges. |
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Term
| Social vs. Ecological factors |
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Definition
-Not mutually exclusive, but have different predictions.
-SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE HYPOTHESIS: cognitive complexity should be positively correlated with social complexity (group size).
-Frugivory hypothesis: % fruit in the diet (or range size) should be positively correlated with cognitive complexity. |
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Term
| Measuring cognitive complexity |
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Definition
-RELATIVE NEOCORTEX DEVELOPMENT
-forebrain (aka centrum) |
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Term
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Definition
-forebrain shows greatest diversity in size and folding.
-neurons concentrated in outer layer: "cerebral cortex".
-NEOCORTEX RATIO: neocortex volume/volume of rest of the brain. |
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Term
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Definition
-Third party relationships (mother's son in danger, other primates looked at mother).
-dominance hierarchies (baboon sound playbacks with grunts and barks).
-thoughts and intentions (theory of mind) |
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Term
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Definition
| -2 year old battle royale, human children outperform full-grown primates of various species. |
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