Biological and Learning Psychology - Quiz 1
106 Questions
0 Views

Choose a study mode

Play Quiz
Study Flashcards
Spaced Repetition
Chat to lesson

Podcast

Play an AI-generated podcast conversation about this lesson

Questions and Answers

What is the primary goal of habituation?

  • To create a pleasant emotional response
  • To create an excessive and irrational fear of an object, place or situation
  • To weaken the response to a stimulus presented repeatedly (correct)
  • To increase the tendency to make a response
  • Which type of conditioning is used in advertising campaigns?

  • Sensitization
  • Operant conditioning
  • Habituation
  • Classical conditioning (correct)
  • What is the term for the reappearance of an extinguished response after a period of non-exposure?

  • Spontaneous recovery (correct)
  • Extinction
  • Higher-order conditioning
  • Generalisation
  • What is the primary difference between reinforcement and punishment?

    <p>Reinforcement increases the tendency to make a response, while punishment decreases it</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for a stimulus that satisfies biological needs, such as food or water?

    <p>Primary reinforcer</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for learning a response that decreases or ends aversive stimulation?

    <p>Escape learning</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the process of learning to respond to one stimulus and not to a similar stimulus?

    <p>Discrimination</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the stimuli that precedes a response and influences operant behavior?

    <p>Discriminative stimulus</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the estimated time of separation of the chimpanzee lineage from humans?

    <p>665 million years ago</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Which of the following is a characteristic of Sumatran orangutans?

    <p>Longer, oval faces</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the phenomenon where male orangutans do not become physically mature until later in life, despite being reproductively mature?

    <p>Arrested adolescence</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Which of the following is a distinguishing feature of Eastern gorillas?

    <p>Jet black in colour</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the average life expectancy of a gorilla after reaching sexual maturity?

    <p>17-19 years</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Which of the following is a characteristic of Bornean orangutans?

    <p>Less dense, darker body hair</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the average age of a male gorilla when it becomes a silverback?

    <p>12-13 years</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Which of the following is a common habitat of most gorilla populations?

    <p>Lowland rainforest and swamp forest</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary component of a gorilla's diet?

    <p>Terrestrial herbaceous vegetation (THV)</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Which of the following is a characteristic of Western gorillas?

    <p>Blackish-brown colour</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main difference between traditional learning theory and ecological learning theory?

    <p>Ecological learning theory takes into account the ecological niche and lifestyle of the organism.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for learning without an obvious reward?

    <p>Latent learning</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main limitation of learning due to physical characteristics?

    <p>Chimpanzees can't learn to speak like humans due to their different anatomical vocal structures.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the phenomenon where an animal's innate response tendencies interfere with conditioning processing?

    <p>Instinctive drift</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main goal of shaping via successive approximations?

    <p>To specify the goal or desired behaviour</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for learning through observing and imitating others?

    <p>Observational learning</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the phenomenon where an animal exhibits excessive or abnormal behaviours during fixed-interval schedules?

    <p>Schedule-induced behaviour</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the species-specific predisposition to be conditioned in certain ways and not others?

    <p>Preparedness</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main idea behind Timberlake's Behaviour Systems Approach?

    <p>Learning is a modifier of behaviour systems that already exist</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the fifth why or determinant of behaviour according to the Behaviour Systems Approach?

    <p>Private Experience</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is an ethogram?

    <p>A descriptive catalogue of the behaviour that occurs within a species</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main function of facial gestures in primates?

    <p>To express emotions and intentions</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the evolutionary process that stereotypes a cue into a signal?

    <p>Ritualization</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary reason why primitive mammals have less elaborate facial expressions?

    <p>Because they are less evolved</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for a signal whose intensity is causally related to the quality being signalled and which cannot be faked?

    <p>Index</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main advantage of the instantaneous and scan method of studying animal behaviour?

    <p>It provides a comprehensive picture of the social group as a whole</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary reason why primitive animals are considered intelligent?

    <p>Because they are able to solve ecological and social problems</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for a behaviour that is strongly biologically determined and has a specific form throughout a species?

    <p>Fixed action pattern</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main goal of phenotype matching in terms of altruistic behavior?

    <p>To identify kin</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary focus of research in modern zoos?

    <p>Research and conservation</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary goal of enrichment in zoos?

    <p>To stimulate the animals' natural behaviors</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What was the primary finding in the original dog experiments on learned helplessness?

    <p>Two thirds of the dogs failed to learn to escape the shock</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary criticism of the original theory of learned helplessness?

    <p>It goes beyond the experimental findings</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary difference between the original and revised theories of learned helplessness?

    <p>The revised theory focuses on attributional dimensions</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary limitation of experiments using human participants to study learned helplessness?

    <p>The validity of the results is open to question</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary consequence of experiencing uncontrollable outcomes, according to the revised theory of learned helplessness?

    <p>Explaining the outcome in terms of attributional dimensions</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary difference between internal and external attributions in the revised theory of learned helplessness?

    <p>Internal attributions determine personal helplessness</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary function of contextual cues in altruistic behavior?

    <p>To provide more information about the situation</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the characteristic of a person with a depressive attributional style when it comes to good outcomes?

    <p>External, unstable, specific attributions</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the depressive realism hypothesis based on?

    <p>Depressed college students are more accurate in making judgments about their performance</p> Signup and view all the answers

    According to Beck's theory of depression, what is the main factor that maintains depression?

    <p>Negative schemas about the self, world, and others</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the assumption of the hopelessness theory of depression?

    <p>Depressed people display an unrealistic attributional style</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main idea of the positive illusions theory?

    <p>Mentally healthy people distort reality, whereas depressed people are realistic</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the goal of attributional retraining, according to Martin Seligman?

    <p>To develop a healthy attributional style</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the purpose of phylogeny?

    <p>To study the evolutionary history of a population and how it is related to others</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Which of the following is a non-human ape?

    <p>All of the above</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Which subfamily does the Orangutan belong to?

    <p>Ponginae</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Which of the following is a method of non-lethal management of predators and livestock?

    <p>All of the above</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the average group size of gorillas in mixed forest?

    <p>12</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main reason for infanticide in gorillas?

    <p>Following death of silverback in one male unit</p> Signup and view all the answers

    How do gorillas typically communicate with each other?

    <p>Auditory displays followed by chest beats</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the difference in interbirth interval between gorillas and chimpanzees?

    <p>Gorillas have a shorter interbirth interval</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary difference between western and central chimpanzees?

    <p>Juvenile facial features</p> Signup and view all the answers

    How do chimpanzees usually travel?

    <p>In small groups</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main component of a chimpanzee's diet?

    <p>Fruits</p> Signup and view all the answers

    How do chimpanzees typically nest?

    <p>In trees</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the average number of offspring a female chimpanzee has in her lifetime?

    <p>3.9</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the age of first swelling in female chimpanzees?

    <p>10.7 years</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary prey of chimpanzees in Gombe?

    <p>Red colobus monkey</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the average party size of bonobos in a fission-fusion society?

    <p>6-35</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the percentage of time young chimpanzees spend with their mothers up to 9 years?

    <p>50-60%</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main difference between chimpanzees and bonobos in terms of aggression?

    <p>Chimpanzees are more aggressive</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary role of the alpha male in chimpanzee society?

    <p>Making most displays</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the average daily range of bonobos?

    <p>2 km</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is unique about the way bonobos copulate?

    <p>They copulate ventro-ventrally</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main reason for the difference in behavior between chimpanzees and bonobos?

    <p>Evolutionary history</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the purpose of the 'rain-dance/waterfall display' in chimpanzee behavior?

    <p>To assert dominance</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the unique aspect of bonobo female genitalia?

    <p>They never lose sexual arousal</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary function of the amygdala in the context of memory?

    <p>To process and store conscious memories of emotional events</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary signal that indicates the body is full and it's time to stop eating?

    <p>The distension of the stomach</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the function of the hypothalamus in the context of hunger and eating?

    <p>To monitor appetite hormone levels</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the natural level or weight 'thermostat' for weight regulation?

    <p>Set Point</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the process of reducing metabolic activity and body temperature for less than a day?

    <p>Torpor</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the phenomenon where an animal's body temperature remains constant despite changes in the environment?

    <p>Homothermy</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a characteristic of chimpanzees in terms of their behavior towards females?

    <p>They systematically brutalize each female in turn to dominate them.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary function of anandamide in the body?

    <p>To influence appetite and fertility</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary difference between nocturnal and diurnal animals?

    <p>Their activity patterns</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a key difference between the genetic makeup of chimpanzees and humans?

    <p>Chimpanzees have a mutated gene that explains human-specific features of Alzheimer's.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the process of regulating body temperature through behavioral means, such as posture and orientation?

    <p>Behavioral thermoregulation</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a common feature of human and chimpanzee genomes?

    <p>They have identical sequences of amino acids in their alpha chains of hemoglobin.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the hormone that is produced by fat cells and helps to regulate body weight?

    <p>Leptin</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a characteristic of bonobos?

    <p>They are co-dominant and use sex to resolve conflict.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is an example of an ethical issue related to our treatment of non-human apes?

    <p>The display of Ota Benga at the Bronx Zoo.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary function of the amygdala?

    <p>To process emotional information and detect predators.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a characteristic of the connections between the amygdala and the neocortex?

    <p>They are weaker from the neocortex to the amygdala.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a response to a strong stimulus that can be triggered by the amygdala?

    <p>Piloerection and heart racing.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a characteristic of the way the amygdala responds to facial expressions?

    <p>It responds preferentially to faces expressing fear and joy.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a possible explanation for why chimpanzees are susceptible to sleeping sickness, while humans are not?

    <p>Chimpanzees have a mutated APOL1 gene.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the key factor in mating among bonobos?

    <p>Female choice</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary function of theory of mind in animals?

    <p>To attribute mental states to others</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the classic test of self-awareness in animals?

    <p>Mark and mirror test</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the earliest evidence of hominid tools associated with?

    <p>Scavenging</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the significance of the Laetoli Hominid Trail?

    <p>It provides evidence of early bipedalism</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the most supported hypothesis for the origins of bipedalism?

    <p>Postural feeding hypothesis</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the significance of the discovery of Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy)?

    <p>It provides evidence of early bipedalism preceding the evolution of a bigger brain</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the characteristic behaviour of orangutans in the wild?

    <p>Rape of females</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the characteristic behaviour of gorillas in the wild?

    <p>Infanticide</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the distinct characteristic of bonobos in the wild?

    <p>Gentle and 'sexy' behaviour</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Study Notes

    Biological and Learning Psychology

    Habituation and Phobia

    • Habituation: a stimulus is presented repeatedly, and the response to it weakens
    • Phobia: an excessive and irrational fear of an object, place, or situation

    Classical Conditioning

    • Basic processing:
      • Reinforcement Acquisition
      • Spontaneous Recovery
      • Generalisation
      • Higher-order conditioning
    • Extinction: repeated presentation of CS without UCS, producing a reduction and eventual disappearance of CR
    • Discrimination: learning to respond to one stimulus and not to a similar stimulus

    Operant Conditioning

    • Principles of operant conditioning (3-term contingency):
      • Reinforcement/Punishment (SR)
      • Operant Response (R)
      • Discriminative Stimulus (SD)
    • Reinforcement: an event following a response increases the tendency to make that response
    • Punishment: an event following a response decreases the tendency to make that response
    • 3 factors influencing effectiveness of punishment:
      • Severity
      • Consistency
      • Delay
    • Negative Reinforcement: learning a response that decreases or ends aversive stimulation
    • Shaping via Successive Approximations: specifying the goal or desired behaviour and reinforcing successively closer approximations

    Observational Learning

    • Vicarious reinforcement: learning through modelling of a response
    • 4 necessary components to successful modelling:
      1. Attention
      2. Retention
      3. Motor reproduction
      4. Motivation

    Ecological Learning Theory

    • Focuses on principles of learning that take into account the ecological niche and lifestyle of the organism
    • Recognises that behaviour cannot be described in isolation from its environment and biological function served by the learning
    • Latent learning: learning without obvious reward
    • Insight learning: solving a problem through perceiving interrelationships

    Limits of Learning

    • Physical characteristics: set limits on what an individual or species can learn
    • Learned behaviour is not inherited: not passed on to future generations
    • Individual differences: genes contribute to differences within and between species, but environment also plays a role
    • Critical periods: stages of development for optimal learning
    • Neurological damage: limits learning

    Biological Constraints on Conditioning

    • Instinctive drift and animal 'misbehaviour'
    • Conditioned taste aversion
    • Preparedness and phobias

    Timberlake's Behaviour Systems Approach

    • Integrates innate and learned behaviour
    • Takes environment and adaptive functions into account
    • Learning modifies behaviour systems that already exist

    Behaviour Systems Approach

    • Learning evolved as a modifier of behaviour systems that already exist
    • The four whys or determinants of behaviour:
      1. Function (survival/adaptive value)
      2. Causation (control)
      3. Ontogeny (development)
      4. Phylogeny (evolution)
    • Private Experience: what is the private experience of the animal presenting the behaviour?
    • Ethogram: a descriptive catalogue of the behaviour that occurs within a species

    Innate Behaviours

    • Fixed action patterns: strongly biologically determined
    • Rituals and displays: more stereotyped and complex
    • Example: facial gestures are fixed action patterns
    • Phylogenetic relationship of facial expressions/communication

    Supernormal Stimuli and Signals

    • Supernormal stimuli can elicit innate behaviours
    • Signal: behaviour or structure that alters behaviour of others
    • Cue: feature of the world that can be used as a guide to future action
    • Ritualization: evolutionary process that stereotypes a cue into a signal
    • Signal cost and handicaps

    Learned Helplessness

    • Original dog experiments: dogs failed to learn to escape from shocks in a shuttle box
    • Criticisms of the original theory of learned helplessness
    • Revised theory of learned helplessness: explaining the fact in terms of attributional dimensions
    • Depressive realism hypothesis: depressed college students were more accurate in making judgements about their performance

    Cognitive Theories of Depression

    • Beck's theory of depression: depressives have negative schemas about the self, world, and others
    • Hopelessness theory of depression: assumes depressed people generalise inappropriately from situations in which outcomes are uncontrollable to situations in which they are controllable
    • Positive illusions: mentally healthy people distort reality, depressed patients are more realistic

    Other Topics

    • Non-lethal management of predators and livestock
    • Phylogeny: the evolutionary history of a population and how it is related to others
    • Ontogeny: the development or change in behaviour within the lifetime of an individual
    • Living apes: bonobos, gibbons, chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, and humans
    • Non-human apes: great apes, hands and feet, hominidae family, and taxonomy
    • Orangutans: Bornean and Sumatran orangutans, distinguishing features, and developmental milestones
    • Gorillas: western and eastern gorillas, distinguishing features, and developmental milestones### Gorillas
    • Home range: 17-23 km² in mixed forest and swamp forest
    • Day ranges: 1480-2590m
    • No seasonal variation in daily ranges for Eastern gorillas, but dependent on fruiting seasons for Western gorillas
    • Nests: typically on the ground, with tree nests more common in Grauer's gorillas
    • Group size: 12 in mixed forest, 7 in swamp forest, 9 in Bais
    • Relations between groups: use auditory displays (hoot series and chest beats) and visual displays (ground thump or branch breaking)
    • Infanticide: accounts for at least 37% of infant mortality in Virunga, often after silverback death or inter-group encounters
    • Mating: females solicit males, with a small swelling 2-3 days before mating
    • Age at weaning: 3-4 years
    • Interbirth interval: 47-51 months (if infant survived), 12-26 months (if infant died)

    Chimpanzees

    • Two species: Pan troglodytes (chimpanzee) and Pan paniscus (bonobo)
    • Four subspecies of chimpanzees: Western, Nigeria-Cameroon, Central, and Eastern
    • Distinguishing features: dark mask over eyes and nose in juveniles, bald scalp in adults, and white chin beard in older individuals
    • Social structure: live in large communities (40-60 individuals), with a single alpha male and a hierarchy of females
    • Home range: 50 km², with a broadly territorial and fragmented range
    • Diet: mainly fruit (especially figs), with some meat consumption (red colobus and other monkeys)
    • Nesting: usually in trees, with nests 10-12 meters up
    • Grooming: reciprocal, with males groomed more than females
    • Reproduction: age of first swelling 10.7 years, adolescent sterility 2.9 years, and first birth 12-23 years
    • Mating strategies: promiscuity, possessiveness, consortship, and extra-community mating

    Bonobos

    • Found in the south of the Congo River
    • Different behavior: squat when resting, shriller calls, less aggressive, and more sexual behavior
    • Social structure: females disperse, with a fission-fusion society and a party size of 16.9
    • Diet: mainly fruit, shoots, and leaves, with some earthworms and insects
    • Food sharing: juveniles frequently beg for food, and adults share food
    • Daily activity budget: 40% feeding, 32% resting, and 16% traveling
    • Nesting: in bokumbo trees, with a less selective choice of day nests
    • Sex: male-initiated, with a high frequency of ventro-ventral (missionary) sex
    • Aggression: less frequent than in chimpanzees, with some submissive gestures

    Comparative Cognition

    • Study of information processing across species, including humans
    • Theory of mind: ability to attribute mental states to others
    • Self-awareness: demonstrated by mark and mirror test
    • Dolphin cognition: difficult to design cognitive tests, with some evidence of self-awareness

    Hominid Evolution

    • Evidence: fossils, with some tools found with fossils
    • Earliest hominid tools: associated with scavenging, dated to 2.5 million years ago
    • Laetoli Hominid Trail: footprints probably made by Australopithecus afarensis, showing early bipedalism
    • Origins of bipedalism: postural feeding hypothesis, behavioral hypothesis, and thermoregulatory hypothesis
    • Increasing brain size and new behaviors: corresponding to environmental changes
    • New theory: early humans were scavengers, not hunters
    • Famous hominids: Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy), Homo habilis (handyman), Homo erectus (Nariokotome Boy), and Homo naledi (Neo)

    The Dark Side of the Great Apes

    • Orangutans: rape, with small males in "arrested development"
    • Gorillas: infanticide, with males demonstrating female vulnerability
    • Chimpanzees: battering females, with males brutalizing females to dominate them
    • Bonobos: reduced levels of violence, with males and females co-dominant

    Ethics

    • Ota Benga: African pygmy, with a sad story of display and treatment
    • Sarrje (Sarah) Baartman: South African woman, with a sad story of display and treatment
    • Ethical obligations to non-human apes: responsible wildlife tourism, ethical field research, and human-wildlife conflict resolution

    The Biology of Fear

    • Many common psychiatric disorders relate to the brain's fear system
    • Amygdala responds to frightful faces, objects of fear, and facial expressions
    • A strong stimulus can result in piloerection, heart racing, and flight/fight hormones
    • Feelings of fear: if fear message is a false alarm, cortex tries to abort amygdala's alarm signals
    • Memory and the amygdala: conscious memory of the accident and physiological responses elicited reflect two separate memory systems operating in parallel

    The Biology of Hunger

    • Glucose: the body's main fuel, with a natural level or weight thermostat for weight regulation
    • Body chemistry: insulin, leptin, and anandamide (the "bliss" molecule)
    • Hunger and the brain: the hypothalamus controls eating and other body maintenance functions
    • Eating disorders: obesity, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa

    The Biology of Thermoregulation

    • Different systems for regulation of body temperature: poikilothermy, ectothermy, endothermy, and homothermy
    • Counter-current heat exchange: warm and cold blood flow in opposite directions to regulate the temperature
    • Behavioral thermoregulation: using posture, orientation, and/or microclimate selection to regulate body temperature
    • Torpor and estivation: reduced metabolic activity and body temperature for less than a day, or long-term torpor occurring in the summer months

    Studying That Suits You

    Use AI to generate personalized quizzes and flashcards to suit your learning preferences.

    Quiz Team

    Description

    Questions Generated from Studocu Notes

    More Like This

    Classical Conditioning Quiz
    16 questions

    Classical Conditioning Quiz

    SharperEducation9982 avatar
    SharperEducation9982
    Classical Conditioning Overview
    25 questions

    Classical Conditioning Overview

    ManeuverableForgetMeNot2590 avatar
    ManeuverableForgetMeNot2590
    Use Quizgecko on...
    Browser
    Browser