Deck 8: Primate Life Histories and the Evolution of Intelligence

Question 1

Why does senescence occur?

A) because of the relative benefits animals can derive from current reproduction versus from living longer
B) because things must eventually wear down, like the transmission on a car
C) because everything must grow old and die as a part of the cycle of life
D) because animals with senescence, such as zoo animals or humans with medical care, live long artificially

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Some mammals give birth to one offspring at a time, and others to larger litters. Since more offspring per birth could mean higher reproductive success, why doesn't natural selection favor large litters in all mammals?

A) Natural selection does this; most mammals will eventually evolve the ability to have multiple offspring per litter.
B) The number of offspring per litter has no effect on reproductive success because in most cases only one survives anyway.
C) Reproducing involves a number of trade-offs, including quantity (number) versus quality of offspring. Larger litters mean lower-quality individual offspring.
D) It is not possible to change the number of offspring per litter in mammals; all mammals have about the same number of offspring.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

The executive brain ratio is closely linked to

A) home-range size.
B) nocturnal activity patterns.
C) forms of tool use.
D) the amount of fruit in the diet.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

One model of the evolution of intelligence proposes that the primate brain was selected to facilitate behavioral flexibility. This model relates to ________ challenges.

A) social
B) foraging
C) mating
D) ranging

Question 5

If predation pressure is very high, we can expect that natural selection favors animals with ________ life histories.

A) long
B) slow
C) intermediate
D) fast

Question 6

All things being equal, fast maturation and early reproduction are advantageous because they

A) increase the length of the reproductive life span.
B) increase generation time.
C) result in a juvenile stage.
D) give offspring a longer learning period.

Question 7

What is the fundamental evolutionary trade-off between variables that constrain reproduction in mammals?

A) number of estrous cycles versus female's life span
B) number of adult males versus number of adult females in a group
C) sex ratio of offspring versus quantity of offspring
D) quality versus quantity of offspring

Question 8

Which of the following statements about the neocortex ratio is true?

A) It includes the entire hindbrain.
B) It is the neocortex volume compared to brain volume.
C) It is the comparison of brain to body size.
D) It is the comparison of neocortex size to body size.

Question 9

Animals with long life histories, like primates, grow for a long time at the expense of their

A) later fertility.
B) early fertility.
C) later growth.
D) early growth.

Question 10

The area of the brain that is most closely associated with problem solving and behavioral flexibility is the

A) brain stem to hippocampus ratio.
B) executive brain to brain stem ratio.
C) absolute size of brain stem.
D) absolute size of hippocampus.

Question 11

Resource competition is an example of an environmental condition that influences

A) predator avoidance.
B) mating patterns.
C) life history traits.
D) secondary sex characteristics.

Question 12

Organisms that reproduce early tend to have

A) large body size and small brains.
B) short gestation times and large litters.
C) high rates of mortality and long life spans.
D) low rates of mortality and short life spans.

Question 13

Ecological hypotheses about the evolution of intelligence include the ability to

A) allocate investment to many offspring.
B) use complex behavior to acquire or access hard-to-find or extracted food.
C) enter into reciprocal relationships with conspecifics.
D) understand how dominance influences access to food.

Question 14

The extent to which selection favors a strategy in which an animal makes an investment is determined by

A) senescence.
B) the total cost of the investment.
C) the total benefit derived from the investment.
D) the net benefit (benefit minus cost) of the strategy.

Question 15

Which of the following factors is hypothesized to contribute to the intelligence of primates?

A) teaching behaviors to others
B) provisioning
C) competitive pressures produced by sociality
D) manually manipulating food

Question 16

Why does natural selection favor alleles that kill individuals late in life?

A) because genes eventually mutate and grow old, so the elderly must perish to increase group fitness
B) because natural selection favors young alleles for reproduction
C) because individual fitness is determined early in life
D) because genes that enhance early fertility at the cost of a shortened life span increase individual fitness

Question 17

Which of the following aspects of the social hypotheses for the evolution of intelligence in primates have primatologists rejected?

A) In larger groups, competition for food, mates, grooming partners, and other valuable resources selects for intelligence.
B) In many primates, formation of social bonds used in coalitions, exchange networks, and access to resources selects for intelligence.
C) The stresses of keeping track of social relationships in large groups select for intelligence in monkeys that live in large groups.
D) The great apes are the most intelligent, have the largest brains, and live in the largest and most complex social groups.

Question 18

The neocortex ratio in primates is positively correlated with

A) tool use.
B) the amount of activity pattern.
C) the extent of leaves in the diet.
D) group size.

Question 19

A key derived primate trait is a relatively large brain relative to body size, with humans having among the largest. How much metabolic energy do adult human brains consume in a day?

A) 10%
B) 20%
C) 30%
D) 40%

Question 20

Animals that reproduce at later ages have

A) smaller brain and body sizes.
B) longer gestation times.
C) shorter life spans and higher rates of mortality.
D) a menopausal stage.

Question 21

To understand third-party relationships, a primate must

A) have knowledge of the nature of relationships among other individuals.
B) live in a large group.
C) be able to predict food distribution in an environment.
D) understand the reproductive rates of other primates.

Question 22

When comparing the abilities of 2-year-old humans with chimpanzees and orangutans of all ages, researchers concluded that humans and great apes differ in terms of tasks that involve

A) physical cognition.
B) social cognition.
C) the ecological world.
D) morphological characteristics.

Question 23

Redirected aggression refers to

A) deception during aggressive episodes to deflect an aggressor toward another individual.
B) turning received aggression back onto an aggressor.
C) responding to a threat by attacking a lower-ranking individual who was not involved in the original incident.
D) converting aggressive acts into socially beneficial acts using a sense of humor or irony.

Question 24

Effective deception requires

A) ecological knowledge.
B) a theory of mind.
C) associative learning.
D) a large neocortex.

Question 25

Which of the following is true of associative learning?

A) It does not require understanding conceptual categories like dominance hierarchies.
B) It requires theory of mind.
C) It involves knowing the mental states of others.
D) It is a level of learning that all animals possess.

Question 26

In one study of capuchin monkeys, researchers found that capuchins follow basic rules when they form coalitions. The rules include which of the following?

A) Males support each other against females.
B) Dominants are supported against subordinates.
C) Individuals intervene only when the ally outwits both individuals.
D) Individuals support members of the same matriline.

Question 27

Playback experiments of vervet monkeys show that

A) males can recognize their offsprings' vocalizations.
B) mothers recognize the call of their own offspring and one another's offspring.
C) offspring recognize the calls of their mothers.
D) all group members respond to calls of juveniles.

Question 28

In a playback experiment in which female baboons listened to a recording of a female's grunt followed by another female's submissive fear barks, which of the following occurred?

A) Females responded more strongly when they heard a higher-ranking female responding submissively to a lower-ranking female's grunt.
B) Females responded more strongly when they heard high-ranking females in conflict with each other.
C) Females reacted to each vocalization regardless of the rank of those making the call.
D) Females only reacted to the vocalizations of female kin.

Question 29

Which of the following statements is true of monkeys while forming coalitions?

A) They enlist only the physically largest group members as allies.
B) They will act altruistically on behalf of allies.
C) They respond positively only if it is beneficial to them.
D) They choose lower-ranked animals to help them.

Question 30

Which of the following is true of the behavior of the great apes?

A) It fits the social intelligence hypothesis very well.
B) It includes tool use and foraging on foods that are difficult to process.
C) It requires living in large groups.
D) It is more socially complex than monkeys.

Question 31

The theory of mind includes the ability to

A) form complex social coalitions.
B) visually distinguish kin from nonkin.
C) understand the mental states of other individuals.
D) use tools.

Question 32

In contrast to the social intelligence hypothesis, the behavioral flexibility hypothesis seeks to explain selection for large brains in monkeys and apes as having been driven in part by which of the following ecological factors?

A) folivory
B) frugivory
C) extractive foraging
D) learning

Question 33

There is evidence that monkeys and apes are able to

A) deceive one another.
B) create fictive kin categories.
C) make the connection between what others are looking at and what they are attending to.
D) recognize themselves in a mirror.

Question 34

Primates who understand the nature of third-party relationships may

A) have a good idea about who will support them in a conflict.
B) enlist aid from the most dominant male in the group.
C) follow basic social rules, including supporting subordinates against dominants.
D) recruit allies who are close to their opponents.

Question 35

An example of associative learning is

A) watching the behavior of parents.
B) imprinting.
C) memory of past events.
D) understanding cause and effect.

Question 36

Establishing a link between social complexity and cognitive ability across species requires the use of a(n)

A) standardized measurement of cognitive ability.
B) absolute forebrain size.
C) absolute neocortex size.
D) standardized measure of group size.

Question 37

Large brains may have initially evolved in monkeys and apes because they

A) are more folivorous than their ancestors.
B) have greater dexterity in their hands than their ancestors.
C) are more likely to live in variable environments than their ancestors.
D) have larger social groups than their ancestors.

Question 38

Which of the following statements about cognitive differences between humans and great apes is true?

A) These differences are related to their differences in physical cognition.
B) These differences do not exist because both have a theory of mind.
C) These differences seem to reflect the specialized skills humans evolved for living and exchanging knowledge in cultural groups.
D) These differences are manifested within the act of deception.

Question 39

When a juvenile distress vocalization is played for a troop of vervet monkeys and the mother of the juvenile orients toward the speaker, we can infer that vervet mothers

A) recognize the sound of their own kin.
B) like their offspring.
C) are subordinate to their offspring.
D) are located in the center of vervet troops.

Question 40

Examples of redirected aggression in vervet monkeys demonstrate that they understand

A) dominance rank.
B) theory of mind.
C) social intelligence.
D) third-party relationships.

Question 41

There are two male chimpanzees in an experiment: a dominant one and a subordinate one. The subordinate can see two caches of food, but the dominant can see only one. If chimpanzees have the capacity of theory of mind, which of the caches of food do you predict the subordinate chimp will attempt to acquire?

A) the one in view of the dominant chimpanzee
B) the one hidden from the dominant chimpanzee
C) The chimp would chose randomly between the two.
D) The subordinate chimp would fake to the invisible food, then snatch the visible food.

Question 42

Chimpanzees and orangutans perform as well as 2-year-old humans in which domain?

A) memory
B) imprinting
C) social cognition
D) physical cognition

Question 43

Imagine you are a capuchin monkey that has been enlisted to support another groupmate. Which of the following do you support in an aggressive interaction?

A) a female
B) a distant associate
C) a subordinate
D) a dominant male

Question 44

What is the neocortex ratio? Explain how data on the neocortex ratio of primate species have been used to address hypotheses accounting for the evolution of primate intelligence.

Question 45

Give two examples showing that primates have intelligence designed for navigating social relationships.

Question 46

Monkeys and apes may be able to predict another's behavior. If they haven't acquired this skill by having theory of mind, they likely have acquired it by

A) natural selection.
B) associative learning.
C) imitation.
D) deception.

Question 47

Give two examples indicating that primates deliberately deceive conspecifics.

Question 48

Identify the two main approaches that seek to explain selection for high levels of intelligence in monkeys and apes. Compare and contrast them.

Question 49

Vervet monkeys and baboons appear to know

A) which monkey provides the best alarm calls.
B) how to deceive other monkeys to gain hidden food.
C) rank relationships among other individuals.
D) how to choose related individuals from pictures.

Question 50

How does life history theory explain the trade-offs regarding rate of reproduction and quality of offspring? Illustrate your answer with animal examples.

Question 51

List the four main lobes of the cerebrum in primates and briefly describe what the cerebral cortex is and why anthropologists are interested in it.

Question 52

Imagine you are a male macaque. Another individual is threatening you. Which monkey do you try to enlist for support?

A) a female relative
B) a subordinate male
C) a dominant male
D) a dominant female

Question 53

Explain why coalitional behavior may require sophisticated cognitive abilities.

Question 54

Give two examples of the experimental evidence that some primates have the ability to recognize the nature of kin relationships among other conspecifics.

Question 55

Explain the conflict within primatology over great ape cognitive abilities. Given the evidence, what do you think about great ape versus monkey cognitive abilities?

Question 56

What evidence is there that primates understand third-party relationships? How is this knowledge beneficial?