Deck 10: Human Behavior in Perspective

Question 1

Foraging bands are like baboon troops in that:

A)young females leave the band of their birth and move into a different band
B)young males leave the band of their birth and move into a different band
C)young males and females tend to remain in the band of their birth throughout their lives

Answer 1

young females leave the band of their birth and move into a different band

Question 2

Sharing is:

A)not a typical human behavior
B)an important aspect of human social behavior
C)more commonly formed as a part of monkey social behavior than as a part of human social behavior
D)not found in any species except Homo sapiens

Answer 2

an important aspect of human social behavior

Question 3

The presence of a large number of elderly individuals is characteristic of:

A)all primates
B)all apes
C)chimpanzees and humans
D)humans only

Answer 3

humans only

Question 4

Most studies of modern hunter-gatherer societies date from the first half of the twentieth century,because:

A)most foraging societies have recently died out
B)contemporary foraging societies have been influenced by neighboring agricultural or industrial peoples
C)studying foraging societies has been found to have no anthropological value
D)all of the above

Question 5

Human foraging societies are characterized by:

A)a sexual division of labor
B)an egalitarian and cooperative social organization
C)food sharing
D)all of the above

Question 6

Human foraging bands:

A)contain several males ranked in a dominance hierarchy
B)contain several females ranked in a dominance hierarchy
C)contain both males and females in separate ranked hierarchies
D)are basically egalitarian

Question 7

Within a human foraging band a feature of male-male and female-female social relationships is:

A)dominance behavior
B)competition for scarce resources
C)basically egalitarian behavior
D)agonistic behavior

Question 8

The earliest farming dates to about:

A)36,000 years ago
B)28,000 years ago
C)18,000 years ago
D)13,000 years ago

Question 9

In human foraging societies:

A)there is a sexual division of labor,where men hunt and women collect vegetable food
B)food sharing is important
C)the vegetable foods consumed are often difficult to find,acquire and process
D)all of the above

Question 10

Human foraging bands:

A)may join into large multiband units during certain times of the year
B)are highly territorial
C)are made up of males and females who do not form exclusive relationships
D)contain only one mated pair

Question 11

When examining the behavior of Homo sapiens,we look to foraging societies because:

A)modern foragers live exactly like humans did 100,000 years ago
B)agriculture is a recent phenomenon;most humans have lived as foragers
C)foragers live a life that is not complicated by change or contact with other groups
D)all of the above

Question 12

Human social organization is different from other primates in that:

A)human groups consist of many males and females
B)human consist of members of different ages
C)males and females form monogamous pair bonds
D)males and females form monogamous pair bonds within a larger social group

Question 13

In terms of mating activities,humans differ from other primates in that:

A)humans do not practice mother-son mating
B)human groups are inbreeding
C)human females are potentially receptive at all times
D)humans show external signs of estrus

Question 14

The idea that the presence of postmenopausal females in human groups increases the survival rate of children is called the:

A)grandmother hypothesis
B)menopausal advantage
C)postmenopausal fitness advantage
D)elderly female hypothesis

Question 15

Human foraging bands:

A)are composed of several male-female pairs
B)contain several males ranked in a dominance hierarchy
C)form temporary male-female pairs when the female is in estrus
D)contain male-female pairs formed from individuals born into the band

Question 16

In foraging societies:

A)both males and females hunt
B)hunting is primarily a male activity
C)hunting is primarily a female activity
D)men hunt and share the meat only with other men

Question 17

The grandmother hypothesis states that the presence of postmenopausal females in human groups:

A)is a burden on the survival of the rest of the group
B)only became a factor after the development of agriculture
C)increases the survival rate of children
D)all of the above

Question 18

Human foraging bands typically contain about ____ members.

A)200
B)100
C)25
D)10

Question 19

Explanations for concealed ovulation in human females include:

A)the development of pair bonding in humans
B)the development of bonds between males
C)lessening male competition for females
D)confusing paternity as protection against infanticide
E)all of the above

Question 20

For the vast majority of time humans have been:

A)scavengers and/or foragers
B)horticulturalists
C)herders
D)industrialists

Question 21

The term protoculture refers to:

A)the cultural activities of children
B)the earliest evidence of culture found in prehistoric human societies
C)simple cultural activities found in monkey and ape societies
D)innate behaviors commonly found in all mammals

Question 22

The area in the human brain that controls the production of speech sounds is:

A)Chomsky's area
B)Terrace's area
C)Broca's area
D)Darwin's area

Question 23

Human language is open.This means that:

A)humans can coin new labels for new concepts and objects
B)humans can communicate about things not directly in front of the speaker
C)human vocalized sounds do not blend with other signals
D)human "words" have no real connections to the things to which they refer

Question 24

Primates communicate with one another largely through:

A)touching
B)smelling
C)body postures and facial expressions
D)vocalizations

Question 25

Culture is:

A)learned
B)patterned
C)passed down
D)all of the above

Question 26

Donald E.Brown's list of what he considers to be human universals includes:

A)rules about sexual behavior
B)some form of play and games
C)languages that conform to a universal set of grammatical rules
D)all of the above

Question 27

A discrete signal is one that:

A)blends with other signals
B)is not distinct from other signals
C)does not blend with other signals
D)is characteristic only of nonhuman communication systems

Question 28

The transmission of information from a sender to a receiver is termed:

A)language
B)articulation
C)communication
D)displacement

Question 29

A lexicon is:

A)the total of all the standardized sounds made by speakers of a language
B)a set of meaningful units such as words
C)a set of rules used to make up words and combine words into larger utterances
D)a symbol that represents a word

Question 30

Culture is:

A)systematic and patterned
B)used by humans to adapt to their environment
C)learned and passed on from generation to generation
D)all of the above

Question 31

Studies of primates have shown that:

A)only humans display any signs of cultural behavior
B)only humans are capable of learning from experience
C)a and b
D)monkeys and apes display the beginning aspects of culture

Question 32

Human language is:

A)discrete
B)open
C)arbitrary
D)all of the above

Question 33

A sexual division of labor is:

A)found in all human societies
B)found only in non-Western societies
C)found only in foraging societies
D)the only human universal

Question 34

The authors call the transmission of learned behavior in nonhuman primates:

A)primoculture
B)preculture
C)protoculture
D)primatoculture

Question 35

Nonhuman primates:

A)do not possess culture in any form;only humans do
B)adjust to new situations through learned behavior
C)have behavioral patterns that are passed on to the offspring
D)b and c

Question 36

Which of the following is an example of primate communication?

A)a male grooms an estrus female
B)a lemur marks territory with a scent gland
C)a male baboon displays his large canines
D)all of the above

Question 37

A system of vocalized sounds that grades one into another is a:

A)call system
B)discrete system
C)blending system
D)vocalization system

Question 38

The ability to communicate about things at times other than the present and about things not directly in front of the speaker is termed:

A)displacement
B)duality of patterning
C)arbitrariness
D)discreteness

Question 39

Vocalizations in nonhuman primates serve many functions,including:

A)maintaining contact between members of a group
B)signaling annoyance
C)sounding an alarm in case of danger
D)all of the above

Question 40

The development of sweet potato washing among the Japanese macaques of Koshima Island is of interest to students of human evolution because:

A)the monkeys were observed using simple tools to help clean the sweet potatoes
B)the eating of sweet potatoes was not accepted by the troop until the adult males adopted it
C)a single monkey developed a new behavior,and this behavior was transmitted to the rest of the population
D)the monkeys developed new vocalizations to accompany the activity of sweet potato washing

Question 41

The research with Kanzi has concluded that:

A)Kanzi has learned over 400 ASL signs
B)Kanzi has learned about 90 computer lexigrams and understands about 200 spoken words
C)apes have no language potential
D)apes can be taught to communicate with language about as well as the average six-year-old human

Question 42

The faculty of language in the broad sense refers to:

A)shared communicative capabilities of humans and some nonhumans
B)characteristics of language that are unique to humans
C)characteristics of communication found only in apes and humans
D)any ability to communicate

Question 43

Matching Questions
match the feature of language with its partial definition:

-lexicon

A)can add new meaningful units
B)a vocabulary
C)individualistic
D)ability to communicate about things not directly in front of communicator
E)has no direct relationship to thing that is being labeled

Question 44

Matching Questions
match the feature of language with its partial definition:

-arbitrariness

A)can add new meaningful units
B)a vocabulary
C)individualistic
D)ability to communicate about things not directly in front of communicator
E)has no direct relationship to thing that is being labeled

Question 45

Matching Questions
match the feature of language with its partial definition:

-discreteness

A)can add new meaningful units
B)a vocabulary
C)individualistic
D)ability to communicate about things not directly in front of communicator
E)has no direct relationship to thing that is being labeled

Question 46

Matching Questions
match the ape with what it does linguistically:

-Koko

A)gorilla that uses sign language
B)chimpanzee that uses sign language
C)bonobo that uses a keyboard to communicate

Question 47

Matching Questions
match the ape with what it does linguistically:

-Washoe

A)gorilla that uses sign language
B)chimpanzee that uses sign language
C)bonobo that uses a keyboard to communicate

Question 48

Cheney's and Seyfarth's observations of vervet monkeys suggests that these monkeys:

A)make a variety of tools out of vegetable material
B)understand the concept of rank within their dominance hierarchy
C)use a number of hand signs similar to ASL
D)none of the above

Question 49

Matching Questions
match the feature of language with its partial definition:

-openness

A)can add new meaningful units
B)a vocabulary
C)individualistic
D)ability to communicate about things not directly in front of communicator
E)has no direct relationship to thing that is being labeled

Question 50

Koko,the gorilla:

A)was not able to learn ASL when Penny Patterson attempted to teach it to her
B)learned more signs (ASL)than Washoe or any other chimpanzee
C)was able to learn to speak over 150 words
D)was never taught ASL but was taught how to construct words from plastic symbols

Question 51

In order for a communication system to be called a language it must have:

A)words
B)phrases
C)grammar
D)all of the above

Question 52

Matching Questions
match each term with its definition:

-language

A)a vocabulary
B)a symbol used to represent a word
C)a set of rules used to combine meaningful units
D)any transmission of a message from a sender to a receiver
E)an open,arbitrary,discrete system that allows for displacement

Question 53

ASL has been taught to:

A)Albert
B)Washoe
C)Vicki
D)Sarah

Question 54

Matching Questions
match the feature of language with its partial definition:

-displacement

A)can add new meaningful units
B)a vocabulary
C)individualistic
D)ability to communicate about things not directly in front of communicator
E)has no direct relationship to thing that is being labeled

Question 55

The chimpanzees' use of ASL includes the language feature(s):

A)openness
B)displacement
C)arbitrariness
D)all of the above

Question 56

The faculty of language in the narrow sense refers to:

A)shared communicative capabilities of humans and some nonhumans
B)characteristics of language that are unique to humans
C)characteristics of communication found only in apes and humans
D)any ability to communicate

Question 57

Matching Questions
match the ape with what it does linguistically:

-Kanzi

A)gorilla that uses sign language
B)chimpanzee that uses sign language
C)bonobo that uses a keyboard to communicate

Question 58

Essock-Vitale and Seyfarth have concluded that nonhuman primates differ from most other animals in that they:

A)distinguish kin from nonkin
B)behave differently toward those of different dominance ranks
C)can predict the behavior of others on the basis of prior observations
D)all of the above

Question 59

H.S.Terrace's criticism of ape language studies includes:

A)that the apes' utterances did not increase in length over time
B)that the apes had no concept of turn taking
C)that the apes' utterances were not spontaneous but followed the researchers most of the time
D)all of the above

Question 60

The evolution of primate intelligence may be based on:

A)the difficulties imposed by living in a social group
B)the challenge of exploiting fruit as a resource
C)the association of intelligence with language ability
D)a and b
E)all of the above

Question 61

Are there any human universals? Explain.

Question 62

In what ways do nonhuman primates display what might be called intelligence?

Question 63

Matching Questions
match each term with its definition:

-lexigram

A)a vocabulary
B)a symbol used to represent a word
C)a set of rules used to combine meaningful units
D)any transmission of a message from a sender to a receiver
E)an open,arbitrary,discrete system that allows for displacement

Question 64

In what ways does human behavior differ from the behavior of the chimpanzee?

Question 65

In what ways are social carnivores more similar to humans in terms of social behavior than are chimpanzees?

Question 66

Matching Questions
match each term with its definition:

-communication

A)a vocabulary
B)a symbol used to represent a word
C)a set of rules used to combine meaningful units
D)any transmission of a message from a sender to a receiver
E)an open,arbitrary,discrete system that allows for displacement

Question 67

What features describe the social networks of the Hadza as discussed in the text? How does these features compare to modern social networks?

Question 68

What is the difference between the faculty of language in the broad sense and the faculty of language in the narrow sense?

Question 69

How intelligent are nonhuman primates? What factors may be related to the evolution of intelligence in primates?

Question 70

In what ways are the alarm calls of the vervet monkey similar to human language? In what ways are they different?

Question 71

What is meant by the term protoculture?

Question 72

Matching Questions
match each term with its definition:

-lexicon

A)a vocabulary
B)a symbol used to represent a word
C)a set of rules used to combine meaningful units
D)any transmission of a message from a sender to a receiver
E)an open,arbitrary,discrete system that allows for displacement

Question 73

Describe the structure of a human band.How does the human band differ from the baboon troop?

Question 74

Matching Questions
match each term with its definition:

-grammar

A)a vocabulary
B)a symbol used to represent a word
C)a set of rules used to combine meaningful units
D)any transmission of a message from a sender to a receiver
E)an open,arbitrary,discrete system that allows for displacement

Question 75

Can apes be taught to communicate linguistically?