with Correct Answers
10. 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. - Correct Answers: a
9. 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. -
Correct Answers: d
8. 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. - Correct Answers: a
,7. 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 - Correct Answers: a
6. 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. - Correct Answers: d
5. 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 - Correct Answers: c
4. 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) Withinthefirstfewmonths,theyproduceanisolatesong
c) Within the first few months, they produce a plastic song
d) After approximately 12 months, they cease to produce song - Correct Answers: b
,3. 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 - Correct Answers: c
2. Which of the following are examples of social learning?
a) Stimulus enhancement
b) Observational conditioning
c) Imitation
d) All of the above - Correct Answers: d
1. 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. - Correct Answers: b
10. 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. - Correct Answers: a
, 9. 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-smackingispresentinOldWorld,butnotNewWorld,monkeys. - Correct Answers: d
8. 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. -
Correct Answers: c
7. 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) Inzebrafinches,onlymaleslearnsongsthroughexposuretothe 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. - Correct Answers: b
6. 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.