Exam 3: Genes,evolution,and Environment

Professor Chung has designed a computer model to determine how children might be able to acquire linguistic features without an inborn language acquisition device.She is likely to view infants as:

John B.Watson would agree that:

Language is defined as a system that combines meaningless elements,such as sounds or gestures,to form structured utterances that convey meaning.

The relative power of biology and culture is the main issue confronting evolutionary theorists and their critics.Evolutionary psychologists believe that genes hold culture on a leash that is ________,whereas their common critics contend that the leash is ________.

Evolutionary psychologists,but not sociobiologists,emphasize the evolutionary origins of many human sexual practices.

Match these descriptions with the appropriate concept. -The evolutionary process in which individuals with genetically influenced traits that are adaptive in a particular environment tend to survive and to reproduce in greater numbers than do other individuals.

Behavioural genetics is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with:

People rarely comment when the male member of a couple is much older than the female,but when the female is much older than the male,people take notice.

Behavioural-genetic studies have shown that as adopted children grow into adulthood,the correlation between their IQ scores and those of their biologically unrelated family members is about 0.45.

Most psychologists would agree that the evolutionary history of our species accounts for our preference for sweet tastes.

What are the results of the two opposite sexual strategies of men and women according to sociobiological theory?

Dizygotic twins develop when a fertilized egg divides into two parts that develop into separate embryos.

Most psychologists would agree that the evolutionary history of our species accounts for our:

Contrast the positions of the nativists with that of the empiricists.Name a leading proponent of each camp.

According to sociobiologists,males:

For many years,psychologists addressing questions about human differences tended to fall into two camps.Those who emphasized the role of genes in human diversity were called:

According to the principle of natural selection,genetic variations become more common over time if they are adaptive in a particular environment.

Darwin suggested that language develops as the brain makes probability decisions that one word is likely to follow another.

Evolution is defined as a change of gene frequencies within a population over many generations.

Why do gene frequencies in a population change? Why don't they stay the same from one generation to the next? Explain how the processes of mutation,crossover,and natural selection can provide an answer to these questions.