PSYC 205 Exam Test Bank | Questions and Answers (Complete Solutions)

PSYC 205 Exam Test Bank | Questions and Answers (Complete Solutions) Which of the following statements is most accurate? a) Some examples of animal 'teaching' appear to fit the current operational definition of teaching. b) It is commonly accepted that the current operational definition of 'teaching' captures the key components of human teaching. c) Meerkat 'teaching behavior' includes information regarding how to kill prey. d) Comparative cognition research indicates that 'teaching' is not a key component to the cumulative culture of human populations. In 1999, Whiten and colleagues proposed three essential criteria for determining whether a behavior might be best described as a cultural variant that differs across populations of a species. These include all of the following except a) The behavior of interest should be present in some populations of a species but absent in others. b) There should be no reason to think that genetic differences could account for population differences in the behavior of interest. c) The behavior of interest should be considered to be the outcome of social learning. d) The behavior of interest should be present in only some families (i.e., kin groups) with a population. Given the research by Horner and Whiten (2005) using opaque and transparent boxes that contained rewards (described in the text), all of the following statements are supported except a) Chimpanzees do not engage in high fidelity imitation in any situations that have been observed thus far. b) For chimpanzees, when the causal structure of a task is clear, emulation may occur more readily than imitation. c) Human children are more strongly biased to imitate, regardless of the transparency of a causal structure. d) Human children are more likely than chimpanzees to 'overimitate' in situations in which they can observe the physical, causal properties of an apparatus. After observing a member of his group use a stone to crack open a nut, the observing chimpanzee recognizes the end- state of the actions (to obtain nuts) and uses the same actions as the observed chimpanzee. This type of social learning would typically be called a) Imitation b) End-state emulation c) Mimicry d) Enhancement Researchers have proposed that there are certain characteristics of the demonstrator(s) in relation to the observer make the former's actions more likely to be copied. These characteristics lead to 'strategies' for social learning that include all of the following except a) Copy individuals who are actually successful and productive. b) Copy individuals who other members of the group are observing. c) Copy behaviors that the majority of the group are doing. d) Copy lower ranked individuals who have engaged in asocial learning. In some cases of social learning, the identity of the demonstrator increases his or her salience for an observing individual. This has been called a) Observational conditioning b) Enhancement c) Directed social learning d) Conformity What best describes the behavior of isolated male song birds who do not have exposure to other birds during the first year of life? a) After approximately 9 months, they produce crystallized song b) Within the first few months, they produce an isolate song c) Within the first few months, they produce a plastic song d) After approximately 12 months, they cease to produce song One day, a two-year-old child sees his father place a bag of apples on a scale at the grocery store. Right after, the child happily puts a bag of fruit on the scale. This is an example of a) Emulation b) Imitation c) Mimicry d) Observational conditioning Which of the following are examples of social learning? a) Stimulus enhancement b) Observational conditioning c) Imitation d) All of the above As detailed in the textbook, circumstances in which individuals may start to learn from others' behavior include all of the following except a) If one's established behavior becomes unproductive, individuals should switch to copy the behavior of others. b) If the environment is rapidly changing, individuals should engage in social learning. c) Individuals should engage in social learning when the costs of asocial learning are high. d) Social learning should occur more when the potential demonstrators share the same environment as the potential learner. Which of the following does not characterize Nim Chimpsky's use of American Sign Language? a) He responded correctly to instructions to perform novel actions (e.g., "Put the ball in the refrigerator"). b) Many of his strings of signs consisted of repeated words. c) His average 'utterance' length remained small relative to that of developing children. d) Many of Nim's signs were repetitions of signs that the trainer had just made. Which of the following has not been used to support the claim that primate lip- smacking may be an evolutionary precursor to human speech? a) Lip-smacking has a 3-8 Hz rhythm which is similar to the periodicity of integral aspects of speech in many human languages. b) The rhythm of gelada monkey vocalized lip-smacks (i.e., 'wobbles') closely matches that of human speech. c) The rhythm of lip-smacking is unique among primate mouth movements and vocalizations. d) Lip-smacking is present in Old World, but not New World, monkeys. Which of the following is evidence that supports the claim that signature whistles play a role in individual recognition in bottlenose dolphins? a) Signature whistles mark the beginning of play-fighting. b) Individuals create elaborate signature whistles as a form of honest signaling or 'handicapping'. c) Individuals will produce their own signature whistle when meeting other individuals. d) Signature whistles are often mimicked by other individuals in order to obtain access to feeding sites. Which of the following statements would not typically be used to support the claim that the FoxP2 gene is involved in bird song learning? a) When zebra finches are engaged in song learning, FoxP2 is upregulated in the same regions of the brain that had previously been assumed to be associated with song learning. b) In zebra finches, only males learn songs through exposure to the songs of other males in their group. c) Interfering with FoxP2 expression in young zebra finches results in incomplete and inaccurate song learning. d) All of the statements support this claim. One particularly fascinating observation from the study of Sarah the chimpanzee, who was trained with plastic shapes that represented words, was that: a) She showed 'fast mapping' when associating new plastic shapes with new words. b) She associated signs from American Sign Language with the plastic shapes. c) If shown a red apple and a banana, she would choose a plastic shape that represented the number "2" d) If shown are dapple and the symbol for 'color of', she would choose a plastic shape previously associated with the color red. Which of the following is incorrect, given research to date? a) Both human boys and girls will engage in play fighting, or 'rough-and- tumble' play. b) Play fighting in rats elevates levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (a growth factor) in the amygdala and dorsolateral frontal cortex. c) Typically, as long as they have other types of social interactions within the first 20 days of life, rats deprived of play fighting will show normal social competence. d) Typically, the period of development in which human rough-and-tumble play between children and parents is most common corresponds with the development of frontal lobe functioning, Which of the following statements is inaccurate? a) Deceptive signaling indicates that a species has a 'theory of mind'. b) For some species, the cost of ignoring real alarm calls likely outweighs the cost of responding to false alarms. c) Diana monkeys respond with alarm calls to the alarm screams of chimpanzees with whom they share a common predator, but they do not respond to the social screams of chimpanzees. d) Vocal mimicry can allow for deceptive signaling. The waggle dance of bees contains information about the distance and direction of a food location. Distance information is conveyed through the a) Angle of the dance to the vertical b) Rapidity of the 'waggle' of the dance c) Number of times the dance is completed d) Length of the 'run' of the dance Human language has the property of recursion. This relates to the fact that: a) We can embed clauses within clauses. b) We consider the mental states of listeners. c) We can talk about objects or events that occurred in the past. d) We intend to provide information to others. The term that characterizes a communication system in which an unpalatable species has coloration, odors, or warning sounds that signal their danger to potential predators is a) Batesian mimicry b) Aposematism c) Audience effect d) Kinesis Which of the following statements is the most inaccurate? a) In rats, maternal responses to a pup's distress calls have been shown to indicate that the mother attributes distress/anxiety to the pup. b) The interaction between rat pup distress calls and maternal responses has been considered as a model for separation anxiety in human infants. c) Rat pup distress calls may be a vocal byproduct of compression of the abdomen due to cold exposure. d) After hearing a pup's distress call, a rat mother's response functions to reduce the pup's distress by retrieving the pup and bringing it back to the nest. Johnson et al. (2010) repeatedly showed human infants the following animated scene until they habituated: a small circle and a large circle were separated on a hillside at which time the small circle emitted a cry. Infants then watched two test events, one in which the larger circle approached the smaller circle, and one in which the larger circle moved away from the smaller circle. Which behavior best describes the looking behavior of infants in the test trials? a) Securely attached infants looked longer when the large circle approached the smaller circle. b) Insecurely attached infants looked longer when the large circle moved away from the smaller circle. c) Insecurely attached infants looked longer when the large circle approached the smaller circle. d) Securely attached infants looked equally at both test events. Which of the following statements about oxytocin is incorrect? a) In rats, oxytocin is related to nest building behaviors b) Variants in the genes coding for the oxytocin receptor may correspond to differences in sharing behavior in humans. c) Oxytocin is a neurohormone. d) In humans, oxytocin is a factor only in kin-directed prosocial behavior. The risk of cheaters increases when the group size increases, particularly if the outcome of the cooperation is publicly available in the sense that individuals who did not take part in the cooperative activities can access the benefits. This concept is typically referred to as a) Inequity Aversion b) The tragedy of the commons c) Inequality aversion d) Group hunting In research with nonhuman primates, which term refers to feelings of concern for others stemming from understanding their feelings? a) Consolation b) Empathy c) Sympathy d) Emotional contagion Which of the following is incorrect, given research to date? a) Punishment for not sharing in a fair manner is found in both humans and chimpanzees. b) In capuchin monkeys, inequity aversion is, at best, limited to situations of unfairness to oneself c) For chimpanzees, there is no evidence of sharing in experiments using the dictator game. d) In the wild, there is ample observation of food sharing among relatives in cooperatively breeding species. Which of the following statement is most accurate? a) Among primates, only humans and callitrichid species have thus far been observed to engage in proactive food sharing b) Across the nonhuman animal species tested, chimpanzees show the most frequent sharing of food with kin c) Among primates, only humans and callitrichid species have thus far been observed to engage in passive food sharing d) Among primates, only humans have thus far been observed to engage in proactive food sharing. In the laboratory, you test 18-month-old human children and young chimpanzees in a similar task: you 'accidently' drop an object and then reach for it. You observe and record the actions of the children and chimpanzees for up to 10 seconds after you reach for the object. Given the results of Warneken and Tomasello (2006), you will likely observe that a) Chimpanzees, but not young children, pick up the object and give it to you b) Only the young children will pick up the object and give it to you c) At this age, both chimpanzees and children will keep the dropped object for themselves d) Both the chimpanzees and children will typically pick up the object and give it to you Of the following, the best way to characterize mutualism is: a) Help those who are related to you. b) You scratch my back while I scratch your back. c) Pay back helpful acts over delays. d) Help those who have helped others in the past. Hamilton's mathematical formulation for inclusive fitness takes into account a) Only direct fitness b) Only one's own offspring c) Indirect and direct fitness d) Reproductive fitness and reproductive success From the chapter on social competence, what cognitive mechanism(s) might underlie the ability to recognize dominance structures? a) formation of equivalence classes b) a memory system that allows for chunking c) a memory system that allows for reciprocity and ordinality d) formation of equivalence classes and a memory system that allows for chunking Which of the following is an example of redirected aggression? a) After threatening Monkey B, Monkey A shows aggression toward his own kin. b) After being threatened by Monkey A, Monkey B threatens a relative of Monkey A. c) After being threatened by Monkey A, Monkey B shows aggression toward Monkey A d) After being threatened by Monkey A, Monkey B turns his back and engages in eating behavior. You test two groups of western scrub jays. In Group 1, the jays had to cache food in private, without any other jays watching. In Group 2, the jays were able to cache food in the presence of other jays that were dominant to them. Then, jays from both groups are given access to the cached food while no other birds are present. Given the results of Dally et al. (2006), what do you expect to observe? a) The jays in Group 2 will move the cached food to new locations more so than the jays in Group 1. b) The jays in Group 1 will move the cached food to new locations more so than the jays in Group 2. c) The jays in Group 1 will engage in more species-specific mobbing behavior than the jays in Group 2. d) The jays in Group 2 will engage in more species-specific mobbing behavior than the jays in Group 1. Neurons in the premotor cortex that fire when monkeys reach for and grasp objects, and also fire when the monkey observes another monkey doing the same action, are called. a) Medial prefrontal neurons b) Temporal parietal junction neurons c) Mirror neurons d) Mimicry neurons Chimpanzees in Group A see the following scenario: an experimenter looks at the chimpanzee, picks up a grape, places it near the chimpanzee, but the grape unexpectedly rolls out of reach of chimpanzee. Chimpanzees in Group B see a different set of events: an experimenter looks at the chimpanzee, picks up a grape and places it far away from the chimpanzee participant. Given the results of Call et al. (2004), what behavior do you expect to observe? a) Chimpanzees in both groups become agitated with the experimenter and leave the testing room because the grape could not be eaten. b) Chimpanzees in Group B, but not Group A, become agitated with the experimenter and leave the testing room because for Group B, the experimenter was unwilling to give the grape. c) Chimpanzees in Group B, but not Group A, become agitated with the experimenter and leave the testing room because of an underlying inequity bias. d) Chimpanzees in both groups look longer at the grape than the experimenter's actions because of an underlying food bias. Tina, a five-year-old human child, is shown a Cheerios box and then shown that it contains marbles. If asked what her friend, Timothy, will think upon seeing the box for the first time, Tina will most likely say that Timothy will think it contains: a) Cheerios b) marbles c) pencils d) beads Which of the following observations of behavior does not consider the mental states that might underlie the behavior? a) She ordered chocolate ice cream instead of strawberry because she did not like fruit-flavored desserts. b) The child carried the cup to the table, placed it gently on the placemat, and smiled while thinking, "I didn't spill! I'm a big boy!" c) She ordered chocolate ice cream because she did not know that strawberry was available. d) The child carried the cup to the table, placed it gently on the placemat, and said, "I didn't spill! I'm a big boy!" In the 1970s, Gallup had certain assumptions and conclusions regarding mirror self-recognition. These included all of the following except: a) only apes and humans show self-recognition b) self-recognition is related to Theory of Mind c) recognizing oneself in a mirror implies a concept of self d) mirror neurons underlie mirror self-recognition Pascalis and colleagues found that 6- and 9-month-old human infants distinguished among photographs of different human faces, but only the younger age group could also distinguish among a set of monkey faces. This type of developmental process is often referred to as: a) Speciesism b) Conspecific focusing c) Perceptual narrowing d) Adaptive perception All but which one of the following research findings provides evidence for early detection of biological motion in chicks: a) newly-hatched chicks look at depictions of hen faces more than non- face stimuli b) newly-hatched chicks look at point-light depictions of hens more than randomly moving point-light stimuli c) newly-hatched chicks look at point-light depictions of cats more than randomly moving point-light stimuli d) newly-hatched chicks look at randomly moving point-lights more than point-light depictions of hens The prototype theory of concept formation a) has been demonstrated in all animals tested to date. b) proposes that novel exemplars are more important than familiar exemplars during categorization. c) proposes that categorization involves a comparison with new exemplars to a model of ideal member of the category. d) can be tested in pigeons using either tones or lights but not smells. Which of the following is NOT an advantage of kin recognition? a) The prevention of inbreeding. b) Recognizing potential mates. c) Ensuring valued resources go to offspring. d) Categorization of conspecifics and heterospecifics. What theory of concept formation would place items in the same category based on the fact that are all round, and small, and bounce? a) Exemplar theory. b) Prototype theory. c) Elemental theory. d) Collective theory. In a social colony with a diverse genetic background such as a beehive, what form of recognition system would evolution favor? a) Kin based recognition. b) Nest-mate based recognition. c) Individual recognition. d) Collective recognition. The notes a songbird uses to communicate is an example of a) functional categorization. b) perceptual categorization. c) natural categorization. d) musical categorization. Which of the following is not a type of social categorization? a) Conspecific recognition. b) Parent-offspring recognition. c) Unfamiliar kin recognition. d) Facial recognition. Which of the following statements is false with respect to face recognition? a) The occipital face area is involved in identifying the unique features of an individual. b) Facial recognition is not strongly correlated with visual or verbal recognition. c) Limbic structures, such as the amygdala, play a key role in facial recognition. d) Prosopagnosia results from impairments in sensory system functioning. Which is not true of categorization? a) It is the cognitive process of classifying items or events into groups based on one or more common features. b) Linnaeus' taxonomy is an example of categorization. c) Its proposed evolutionary significance is that is reduces mental resources. d) It is distinguishing items or events based on one or more distinct features. Which is not true of kin recognition? a) Kin recognition avoids inbreeding. b) Filial imprinting, a form of kin recognition, involves both a biological and an environmental component. c) Recognition of unfamiliar kin involves chemical signals, whether genetic or environmental. d) In social animals, such as apes, kin recognition is nearly perfect because they live in large groups and evolutionary pressures forced them to recognize a large number of kin. Stimulus generalization tests are often used to study which form of categorization? a) Perceptual. b) Functional. c) Relational. d) Social. What is a common method for studying the neural basis of categorization in the human brain? a) Comparing patients who aren't able to recognize living or non-living with normal control subjects. b) Comparing how humans and animals acquire different categorization abilities. c) Studying the age at which children can discriminate between living a nd non-living things. d) Neuroimaging studies with normal control subjects. Which is not one way of grouping similar things? a) Social categorization. b) Relational categorization. c) Perceptual categorization. d) Semantic categorization. Which of the following would be a good way to assess the structure of natural categories? a) Compare the time to respond (reaction time) to items that are and are not part of the natural category. b) Compare how well different species can categorize items in natural categories. c) Measure the number of elements for items that are and are not in a natural category. d) Count natural and non-natural categories in the natural environment. What evidence from the readings suggests that the amount of generalization to novel stimuli can be altered through experience? a) After being trained to respond to red lights, lights with more similar wave lengths cause more responding than those with less similar wavelengths. b) After being trained to respond in the presence of a 1000 hz tone and white light, pigeons will not respond to anything above or below a 1000 hz tone. c) After being trained to respond when a 1000 hz tone is present, but not when it is absent, pigeons show sharper generalization gradients than if they were trained with the 1000 hz tone present through training. d) After being trained to respond on three different keys, pigeons show steeper generalization gradients than those trained to respond on two different keys. In the classic study by Hernstein and Loveland, pigeons were trained to peck one of four keys when a picture of a person, flower, chair or car was presented on a screen. Correct responses were reinforced on a VI schedule of reinforcement, inducing high rates of responding. Why did the researchers conclude that this phenomenon could not be explained by memorization? a) When a novel picture was presented, pigeons categorized correctly. b) Pigeons peck at the same high rate when a novel picture of a new stimulus category is presented. c) When pigeons undergo a memory task, they recognize the pictures of humans but not cars. d) When pigeons were tested with 'pseudocategories', they could not discriminate people from chairs. Three-year old Charlie sees a furry little animal hopping along his front lawn. He squeals excitedly and points to the animal. His mother looks at him, points at the animal and says 'squirrel". Later in the day, Charlie points to the neighbor's dog and yells "squirrel"! Which of the following statements is true? a) Charlie categorizes furry animals as squirrels. b) Charlie can't tell the difference between the features of a dog and the features of a squirrel. c) Charlie's concept of "squirrel" includes dogs. d) a and c. Damage to the ________ of the left inferior temporal cortex disrupts the ability to identify and categorize________. a) anterior regions; inanimate objects b) posterior regions; living things c) lateral regions; living things d) posterior regions; inanimate objects Which of the following theories describe a process that is not an efficient way to form concepts after the initial stages of concept formation? a) Elemental theory. b) Exemplar theory. c) Prototype theory. d) all of the above. Which of the following is not a mechanism of kin recognition? a) Chemical signaling. b) Filial imprinting. c) Natal philopatry. d) Phenotypic matching. The textbook describes experiment evidence that_______ can form relational categories. a) bees b) chimpanzees c) monkeys d) genetically modified mice A pseudocategory is a) a random collection of items that has no obvious cohesive feature. b) a collection of items that has common perceptual features but not functional or relational features c) a collection of items that is not a natural category d) collection of items that is categorized differently by different subjects. What does a flat stimulus generalization gradient indicate? a) Subjects cannot distinguish the sensory properties of different test stimuli. b) Subjects have not learned to differentiate training and test stimuli. c) Subjects cannot generalize a learned category. d) a or b. Categorization a) requires knowing the abstract set of rules that define the category. b) is the process of classifying items or events into groups based on one or more common features. c) is the process of distinguishing items of events based on one or more distinct features. d) all of the above are true. The Somatic Marker hypothesis a) suggests that decision making is influenced by physiological responses to emotional stimuli. b) describes how emotions disrupt decision making. c) is commonly tested in animals foraging in the natural environment. d) represents the subjective value of a behavioral outcome. The Iowa Gambling Task a) measures impulsivity in lab rats. b) is used to diagnosis memory deficits in brain damaged patients. c) reveals better decision making in ecological situations. d) shows that emotional decision making can occur without conscious awareness of contingencies. Ecological rationality a) is based on the idea that animals make decisions collectively. b) cannot explain human decision making outside of the natural environment. c) explains which strategy is better in a particular environmental context. d) is the best explanation for individual differences in decision making. Marginal value theorem a) was developed to explain why animals forage in patches. b) fits an optimization model. c) suggests that the decision to move to a new patch differs across species. d) assumes that animals know the payoff in each patch. A fundamental assumption of optimal foraging theory is that a) net energy gain is associated with fitness. b) animals will work harder for food when dominant animals are present. c) predator animals are biased to selecting intermediate-sized prey. d) return foraging trips use more energy than outgoing foraging trips.