Psychology 3906 Animal Cognition

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Psychology 3906Animal Cognition

• Dr. Dave Brodbeck

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Introduction

• OK, the book is called Cognition, Evolution and
  Behavior so, we had better know about all of the
  above
• Now of course most of this is review

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Cognition

• Cognition is about mechanism
• The perception, storage, processing and retrieval
  of information
• Some internal representation of the external
• Functioning isomorphisms
• Not consciousness

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Not consciousness, but

• We do use the terms though
• Emotion
• Fear
• To know
• And indeed, perhaps one day someone will be able
  to study consciousness

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Is all complex behaviour cognitive?

• Well it need not be
• Indeed it could be a simple S-R type of thing.
• The complexity of a behaviour is not necessarily
  an indication of complicated cognition
• You knew it was coming..

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In a Moths Ear.

• Moth Ear basically has two neurons A1 and A2
• They are not frequency sensitive, but do not
  respond to low frequencies

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Those would be some tiny Q tips..
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Do Moths Have Ear Wax?

• A1 is responsive to intensity
• More firing with closer bat
• A2 only fires with very loud sounds
• A2 fires, bat must be very close

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Moths and Bats, Charts and Graphs

• A1 on the left fires, that wing beats faster
• Moths course corrects to 180 degrees from bat
• So very and totally cool
• A2, go crazy
• 2 neuron ear can encode where a predator in in 3
  dimensional space!!!

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Why does an animal behave the way it does?

• Cause (proximate cause)
• Development
• Function (ultimate cause)
• Evolution
• Do not mix these up!
• Why do birds migrate?
• Innate vs. learned
• Nature vs. nurture

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Approaches to the Study of Comparative Cognition

• Traditional or Anthropocentric approach
• People can do x
• I wonder if rats can?
• Probably still the most popular approach, even
  when people say they dont do it..

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Characteristics of the Traditional Approach

• Focuses on memory, representation etc, just like
  in humans
• The choice of the species to be studied is based
  primarily on convenience
• The notion of a phylogenetic scale

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MacPhail

• Probably best example is MacPhail
• No differences have been found between species
  that cannot be explained by motivation
• We must, therefore, accept H0
• Except for humans of course, we are all special..

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The Synthetic Approach

• This approach sees the MacPhailian ideas as
  illogical
• Instead lets look at behaviour from an
  evolutionary perspective
• Look at behaviour in the field
• Choose species/problems based on these
• Make predictions about mechanism

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But what about the motivation thing?

• Error cancels baby
• Plus, how likely is it to find a pattern of
  results, that fits with your hypothesis that is
  by dumb luck, also due to motivation
• There should be patterns of results in essence

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Natural Selection

• The Theory of Natural Selection is so simple that
  anyone can misunderstand it. (Anonymous)
• Charles Darwin (1809-1882) saw three problems in
  need of a solution.
• Darwin was not the only one to see these problems
  BTW
• Other Naturalists were struggling with the same
  issues

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Problem the First

• There is change over time in the flora and fauna
  of the Earth
• What we would commonly call evolution today
• The fossil record showed this to be pretty clear,
  even to people in the mid 1800s
• This was not controversial in Darwins time, and
  is not now.

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The Second Problem

• There is a taxonomic relationship among living
  things
• People were big into classifying stuff
• It was pretty obvious that there was a
  relationship between different species
• Different birds, different grasses, different
  cats etc

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The Third Problem

• Adaptation
• Different kinds of teeth for different animals,
  say carnivore ripping teeth and herbivore
  grinding teeth
• Different tissues within species
• Heart vs. eye etc.

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The Solution!

• Natural Selection provides a mechanistic account
  of how these things occurred and shows how they
  are intimately related.
• It is one of those oh man is that ever easy, why
  didnt I think of that? type things.

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Hows it work?

• There is competition among living things
• More are born or hatched or whatever, than
  survive and reproduce
• Reproduction occurs with variation
• This variation is heritable
• Remember, there was NO genetics back then, Chuck
  knew, he just knew.
• Realized that is wasnt blending

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Hows it Work?

• Selection Determines which individuals enter the
  adult breeding population
• This selection is done by the environment
• Those which are best suited reproduce
• They pass these well suited characteristics on to
  their young

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Hows it Work?

• REPRODUCTION is the key, not merely survival
• If you survive to be 128 but have no kids, you
  are not doing as well as I am
• I have reproduced
• Assuming the traits that made me successful will
  help them then I amore fit NOW than the 128 year
  old guy

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This lecture keeps evolving..

• Survival of the Fittest (which Chucky D NEVER
  said) means those who have the most offspring
  that reproduce
• So, the answer to the trilogy of problems is
• Descent with modification from a common
  ancestor, NOT random modification, but,
  modification shaped by natural selection

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Other Evolutionary Theories

• Lamarckism
• Inheritance of acquired characteristics
• E.g., giraffes really wanted leaves, so they
  stretched their necks and..
• Sounds crazy, but a lot of people think this way
• We will all have giant heads and tiny bodies
  someday
• Cave swelling fish dont use their eyes so they
  disappear
• We dont use our appendix so it is disappearing

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Silly incorrect evolutionary theories and ideas

• Orthogenesis
• There is some plan to evolution.
• NO WRONG INCORRECT, THANKS FOR PLAYING
• The idea of an evolutionary ladder fits in here
• It is wrong too

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Still another silly idea

• Intelligent Design
• Just Creationism with a fancy name
• God does not belong in a science class, any more
  than experiments belong in church
• NOT A SCIENTIFIC THEORY

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How do we know if a behaviour is an adaptation?

• Experimentation
• Comparative method
• modeling