Week 5 Quiz: Do our modern skulls house stone-age

minds?
The due date for this quiz is Fri 2 Jan 2015 4:00 AM PET.

Welcome to the quiz for week 5, on evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution. Good luck!

In accordance with the Coursera Honor Code, I (Juan Carlos Vega Oliver) certify that
the answers here are my own work.

Question 1
What is required for a trait to be a product of natural selection? (Pick 3)

There must be extremely sparse resources, not just moderate competition for fairly plentiful
resources.

There must be extreme environmental pressure, such as we find in the arctic or at the bottom of
the ocean.
It must be beneficial to the organism's quality of life.
It must help the organism to survive and reproduce.
There must be variation in the population.
It must be heritable.

Question 2
What is interesting about the adaptations of the beaver?
They do not contribute to the survival or reproductive success of the organism.
They are passed on culturally, i.e. learnt rather then inherited genetically.

Help

They involve the behaviour of the organism, not just its physical shape, and this is a feature
rarely seen in evolution.
They have developed in response to an environment that beavers have helped to create.

Question 3
Which of the following are claims made by evolutionary psychology? (Pick 4)
Our cognitive capacities have evolved, and are therefore adapted to our current environment.
Our adapted cognitive capacities are heritable.
We will inevitably continue to evolve and get smarter.
The human brain is a product of natural selection.
The human brain is adapted to challenges faced by our ancestors.
All aspects of our behaviour can be explained by natural selection.
The brains we have now are the brains that our ancestors evolved to have.
Psychologists had to evolve in order to discover evolution.

Question 4
What is the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation?
Any environment in which evolution can take place.
The historical environment that shaped the adaptations that we have today.
The environment best suited to rapid evolutionary development.
The environment that we find ourselves in today.

Question 5
What conclusion do Cosmides and Tooby take from the Wason selection task?
We have evolved to have better social skills because were bad at logic puzzles.

We're very good at detecting when a social norm has been violated, but pretty bad at
generalising this to logically equivalent situations.

We're very good at solving abstract logic puzzles, but pretty bad at solving puzzles in social
situations.
We're good in social situations, which means that we dont have to bother about learning logic.

Question 6
Why do evolutionary psychologists favour a modular view of the brain?

Because it is more plausible, in evolutionary terms, to imagine that the brain becomes more
specialised as time goes on.
Because it turns out that the brain is constructed out of very distinct anatomical modules.

Because it is more plausible, in evolutionary terms, to imagine that the brain evolved to solve a
series of distinct problems.
Because it is simpler for them to understand.

Question 7
What is culture, as that term is used in cognitive science?
Any system of knowledge or behaviour that is transmitted though social learning.
High art, including theatre, opera, art-house cinema, and literature.

Any language-based system of knowledge or behaviour that is transmitted through social

leaning.

Any system of knowledge or behaviour that has reached a certain critical level of complexity or
sophistication.

Question 8

What do we learn from the fact that only some chimpanzee populations use a hammer and anvil to
crack nuts?

That neither genetic nor cultural differences are responsible for the behaviour of cracking nuts
with an anvil.

That genetic, not cultural, differences are responsible for the behaviour of cracking nuts with
anvil.
This hammers and anvils are only available in particular geographical regions.

That cultural, not genetic, differences are responsible for the behaviour of cracking nuts with an
anvil.

Question 9
Why is human language so incredibly flexible?

Languages are rule-based, so an understanding of the rules of a language and the meaning of
words is usually sufficient for understanding completely novel sentences.
This is a trick question. Human languages are governed by rules, and are therefore not flexible.

Human language is flexible because it only evolved over the last 5000 years, which meant that
it was originally developed in diverse environments. Had it evolved earlier, when humanity was
less geographically diverse, it would have been less flexible.

Human language is flexible because, unlike the communicative practices of non-human animals,
it is not governed by rules, and so can be extended in novel ways.

Question 10
How can we test the cultural account of how human language evolved?

Although we cant test the origins of human language directly, we can study primitive language
use in chimpanzee populations and make plausible inferences about our hominid ancestors.

We can investigate experimentally how people learn language, and develop computer
simulations of these processes.

We can test this hypothesis by studying the very early origins of language directly, as we have
recently discovered written evidence of these languages.

The cultural account of how human language evolved cannot be tested. It is what Popper called
a metaphysical research programme.

In accordance with the Coursera Honor Code, I (Juan Carlos Vega Oliver) certify that
the answers here are my own work.

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