Animal Communication Lecture Review

Flashcards based on lecture notes about animal communication, honeybee dances, alarm calls, language features, teaching human language to apes, and dolphin communication.

What is a broad definition of communication?

Communication involves the transfer of information, without necessarily implying intention to send or receive, and it doesn't always require active participation.

What are the long-term reasons why animals communicate?

To survive and reproduce.

What are short-term reasons for animal communication?

Alarms, signaling food sources, and indicating mate attraction.

Why is maintaining bonds and social connections important in animal communication, and what potential cost might there be?

It's crucial for social cohesion, but communication signals can be intercepted by predators, posing a risk.

What did Karl von Frisch discover and when did he win the Nobel Prize?

He studied honeybee dances and their communication of food location, winning the Nobel Prize in 1973.

How do honeybees communicate the location of food sources closer than 100m from the hive?

They perform a round dance, alternating circles to the left and right.

How do honeybees communicate the location of food sources farther than 100m from the hive?

They perform a waggle dance, waggling from side to side while running in a straight line within a figure-of-eight pattern.

What indicates the distance of a food source in the honeybee waggle dance?

The duration or number of turns in the waggle run.

How is the bearing of a food source indicated in the honeybee waggle dance?

By the angle of the waggle run.

What was the debate surrounding the honeybee dance, involving Wenner and Wells in the late 1960s?

They argued that bees primarily use odor to find food, not the waggle dance.

What did Michelsen et al. (1992) discover about honeybee communication?

Bees use both distance and direction information from the waggle dance.

How did Riley et al. (2005) study honeybee flight paths?

They used transponders to track bees' flight paths and changed release points to observe changes in behavior.

What did Struhsaker (1967) discover about velvet monkey alarm calls?

Velvet monkeys use different alarm calls for different predators (leopards, eagles, snakes).

What did Seyfarth, Cheney, and Marler (1980b) demonstrate via experiments with velvet monkey alarm calls?

Monkeys respond to alarm calls even when no predator is present, suggesting the calls have inherent meaning.

How did researchers demonstrate habituation in monkeys regarding alarm calls?

By repeatedly playing the same "other group of monkeys" call until the monkeys stopped responding.

What did Manser (2001) discover about meerkat alarm calls?

Meerkats have different alarm calls for different types of predators (aerial, terrestrial, recruitment) and include information about urgency.

According to Pearce (2008), what are the key features of language?

Arbitrariness of units, semanticity, displacement, and productivity.

Define 'arbitrariness of units' in the context of language.

Words usually randomly represent an event, meaning that units in language are arbitrarily related to what they define.

Define 'semanticity' in the context of language.

There is a meaning that allows transfer of information.

Define 'displacement' in the context of language.

Communication about events distant in time or space.

Define 'productivity' in the context of language.

Language is structured according to rules but can be used flexibly to create sentences.

What is Morgan's canon?

We should explain behaviors using the most simple process.

Describe the work of Gardner & Gardner (1969) with Washoe the chimpanzee.

They taught Washoe American Sign Language (ASL) using shaping and instrumental conditioning, resulting in Washoe learning 132 signs after 5 years.

What was Nim Chimpsky known for, and who were the researchers involved?

Nim Chimpsky was a chimpanzee who was taught sign language by Terrace, Petitto, Sanders, and Bever (1979).

What is Yerkish, and who developed it?

Yerkish is a language using visual symbols (lexigrams) on a keyboard, developed by Duane Rumbaugh.

What did Rivas (2005) conclude after reviewing studies on chimpanzee sign use?

86% of chimpanzees' sign use was in response to requests by the experimenter.

Describe the experiments of Herman, Richards, and Wolz (1984) with Akeakamai the dolphin.

Akeakamai was trained to understand gestures and learned 50 signs, demonstrating understanding of displaced reference and semantically reversible sentences.