the evolving mind

Meet Mary (not her real name). Could you recognize Mary in a line-up of other rhesus monkey young ones?

Mary’s troop-mates can certainly identify her. For a social species, being able to differentiate one group member from another is very important. New research has found -

[R]hesus monkeys and humans share a specific perceptual mechanism, configural perception, for discriminating among the numerous faces they encounter daily.

[....]

“Humans and other social primates need to recognize other individuals and to discriminate kin from non-kin, friend from foe and allies from antagonists,” said lead researcher Robert R. Hampton of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory’s Department of Psychology.

When I look at Mary this is one of the things I see: a distant relative. And science has informed me that her brain works something like mine. In this case –when identifying individual others, including kin.

Technorati Links: perception

What is the unit of evolution? While many argue it is the species, others say populations of organism, or individual organisms, or even individual genes. One way to approach the question is to ask, What is selected for by natural selection? Of course, the correct answer might be not one of the above, but some of the above.

New research into reasons for the dramatic brain growth in human evolution has highlighted that the social groups individual organisms are a part of can be a significant aspect of “the environment” which “naturally selects” the fittest organisms. If you get along with others, you may better survive and leave offspring. But that’s not the only option.

After looking at a triumvirate of possibly reasons for the dramatic increase in human cranial capacity — climate change, ecological demands and social competition — researchers at the University of Missouri came to this finding -

[S]ocial competition is the major cause of increased cranial capacity.

Wow. So besides the natural environment and all that is considered part of it, and in addition to “sexual selection,” we may want to add “social selection,” to the list of evolutionary mechanisms. And though we may not want to outright subtract the social group as the fundamental unit of selection (how can you select yourself?), it certainly does give one pause.

Science sure can be complex. I can understand how the answers it provides are found undesirably by many minds.

As an interesting tangent, I found this quote by study author David Geary to dovetail with my An Almighty Alpha project:

When humans had to compete for necessities and social status, which allowed better access to these necessities, bigger brains provided an advantage.

I would argue that religious beliefs and activities are a manifestation of the extreme importance of the human social environment.

Technorati Links: primates

I’ve recently encountered two articles that highlight the importance of friendly relationships: one on humans, the other baboons.

In the first, by cognitive psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania, the researchers looked at the cognitive/perceptual elements of a close friendship. They discovered that an important component is not what you receive from others, but what you perceive to be their “ranking” of you.

friendship rankings were most strongly correlated with individuals’ own perceived rank among their partners’ other friends.

In other words, we tend to rank someone as a very good friend when we perceive that they perceive us as very close, relative to their other friends and associates. What does this have to do with alliances? In the least, the two are intertwined. Co-author Robert Kurzban said, “”Friendships are about alliances.” He elaborated,

In a way, one of the main predictors of friendship is the value of the alliance. The value of an ally, or friend, drops with every additional alliance they must make, so the best alliance is one in which your ally ranks you above everyone else as well.”

Interesting. Next we turn to the baboons. And that study actually helps shed more light on this one.

Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: relationships, status

An incredible number of species vocalize. Dogs growl, cows bellow, birds squawk. You get the picture. What makes human vocalizations unique is the symbolic element. Sure, we can growl and bellow, too. Be we can also add to the emotional component a layer of “cerebral” information. So while Lassie may bark “urgent, urgent!” only a human can provide words that elaborate, “Timmy has fallen down a well!”

A news release about a recent lecture on our primate cousins the baboons highlights just how social these animals are. And how nuanced their emotional vocalizations can be. Yes, there is a robust link between the social and the emotional.

In a lecture given by primate communications expert, Robert Seyfarth of the University of Pennsylvania, Seyfarth recounted the story of a baboon “adopted” by a goat herder in Africa.

The baboon knew all of the relationships between the goats so well that at night she would carry a bleating kid from one barn directly to its mother in another barn.

Baboons live in groups of nearly 100 individuals. To get along and even work together, they are equipped with rich emotional lives coupled with an advanced ability to recognize individuals and remember relationships. Seyfarth and his associate Dorothy Cheney performed some clever experiments on wild baboon “societies” in Africa that clearly illustrated this.

They found that baboons use certain calls only in certain contexts. Screams and fear barks are only given from a lower-ranking to a higher-ranking baboon, while threat grunts are given only from a higher-ranking to a lower-ranking baboon.

By recording the various calls and then playing them in situations that “break the rules,” the scientists determined from the animals’ behavior that baboons are able to put together the discrete elements of identity, kinship, and rank.

That the threat-grunts are given only in certain contexts does not make them symbolic, however. Any specific information we believe the sounds carry may simply be our own projection: putting words in their sounds, so to speak. An emotional “get away” is one thing. A human boss growling at his manager, “get back to work, or I’ll have you in the warehouse loading trucks” is another. Still the ability to do the later no doubt originated in the former. Fascinating.

[Thanks to ScienceDaily for pointing me to the source of this information. And they didn't grunt while doing it.]

Technorati Links: evolution, primates

As a person who enjoys having sex (who doesn’t), eating meat (as most do), and learning about chimpanzee behavior (as fewer do), this science finding was right in my wheel house -

Wild female chimpanzees copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them over long periods of time.

I had actually heard this before. But confirming evidence will give you more confidence in an idea.

In recent research conducted in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire, Cristina M. Gomes and Christophe Boesch show that females copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them on at least one occasion, compared with males who never share meat with them, indicating that sharing meat with females improves a males’ mating success.

The researchers even controlled for the period of the sexual cycle the females were in. Nice work.

Scientists aren’t perfect, of course. One of them went on record saying something I find a bit silly.

Boesch concluded, “Our findings add to the ever-growing evidence suggesting that chimpanzees can think in the past and the future and that this influences their present behavior.

What? Do my dogs love my wife more not because they associate her with treats and affection, but because they can think more highly of her? “Think in the past and future”?

Anyway. As for why human males don’t share meat with females for sexual reasons (settle down now) . . . perhaps chocolate and flowers were a more valued treat when the custom began. Perhaps.

Technorati Links: chimpanzees, sexuality

Chimpanzees throw stuff. Not many animals do. Think about it. In a recent issue of Current Biology researchers share the finding that a male chimpanzee in a zoo has been throwing stones and chunks of concrete at zoo visitors. But that’s not all. What makes the case noteworthy is that the chimp in question has been observed over a decade finding stones and fashioning his concrete chunks into disk-like projectiles at different times and when in a different “drive state” (calm) than when later throwing them. The researchers claim theirs -

is some of the first unambiguous evidence that an animal other than humans can make spontaneous plans for future events.

Interesting. But then one of the researcher goes a bit too far, if you ask me. He says -

I would guess that they [chimps] plan much of their everyday behavior.

While I love chimps, and find in their behavior the precursor forms of many of our own behaviors, I wouldn’t got that far. Just yet. Heck, I don’t know if I’d use the word “plan” to describe how I amble from activity to activity on weekends.

Still. For a long time developmental psychologists underestimated the cognitive abilities of human infants. Why? Because it takes a lot more creativity to test the cognitive abilities of those unable to speak and respond to words than those who do not. I imagine the same holds for testing the mental abilities of other primates. And so their abilities, too, have likely been underestimated.

Technorati Links: chimpanzees, intelligence, language

For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. (Isaiah 64:3)

In the early 1960s Jane Goodall observed a low-ranking male rise to the top of a chimpanzee hierarchy. The way “Mike” did it was most ingenious. He and his troop lived in the forest around Goodall’s base camp. Sometimes the chimps would venture directly into Goodall’s camp and even steal food and other items. What Mike stole allowed him to muscle his way into alpha position. No, it wasn’t a chimpanzee bible he quoted to others on their Sabbath — Bananaday. What he stole allowed him to do what Jesus did in the Gospels: perform dynameis, or “mighty deeds.” (43)

Mike stole empty kerosene cans. These he hit and tumbled ahead of him as part of a threat display, charging toward startled others. And that is how “he bluffed his way to alpha position in 1964.” (44) To maintain his position as most high, the smart chimp repeated his impressive, clamorous displays.

In a real sense, Mike used shock and awe to work his way to the top. While customary bluffs included charging, stamping the ground and shaking branches, Mike caused a ruckus the likes of which had never been seen or heard by his compatriots. His was supernatural feat — at least to the other chimps. No sound like that had ever been heard in their natural habitat.

Raise the signal to go to Zion! Flee for safety without delay! For I am bringing disaster from the north, even terrible destruction.” (Jeremiah 4:6)

Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: chimpanzees, religion, status

In a sense, chimpanzees and other primates are political animals. What do I mean by that? They engage in behaviors such as alliance formation and favor exchange in order to improve their access to resources.

The study report, Small Male Chimps Use Politics, Rather Than Aggression, To Lead The Pack, begins this way -

With most mammals, the biggest and most aggressive male claims the alpha male role and gets his choice of food and females. But a new study from the University of Minnesota suggests that at least among chimpanzees, smaller, more mild-mannered males can also use political behavior to secure the top position.

There is strength in numbers, and in some social groups described as egalitarian — in which attempts at despotic rule by one is prevented by the vigilant, unified discouragement many — the strategy of gaining power by making friends is likely more effective.

While the quantity of the data for the study was poor, little more than anecdote, really, these initial findings are intriguing. In detail -

The study focused on three alpha males who reigned between 1989 and 2003. Frodo, one of the largest and most aggressive male chimpanzees ever observed at Gombe, weighed 51.2 kg (112.6 lbs.) at his peak. He relied on his size and aggression to rule. While he allowed other chimpanzees to groom him, he seldom returned the favor. At the other end of the spectrum, Wilkie, who weighed only 37 kg (81.4 lbs.), obsessively groomed both male and female chimpanzees to maintain his top position. And Freud, who weighed 44.8 kg (98.6 lbs.), used a combination of the two strategies. (The average male chimp in Gombe weighs about 39 kg (85.8 lbs.).

I find primatology fascinating. Studies such as these may help us understand our own behavior. I look forward to more research.

Technorati Links: politics, status

Like the majority of animals, chimpanzees solve more disputes by threat than by actual fighting.
- Jane Goodall (36)

Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground, and it will burn and not be quenched. (Jeremiah 7:20)

Primate alphas rarely rely on actual aggression. Instead, they employ bluff and threat. These could be seen as derivatives and extensions of real physical attack. Rather than actual hitting, a raised arm will do. Eyes and emotions register the impact from a distance. Instead of shoving, trees are shaken, muscles flexed. Additionally, third parties can be the target of acts meant to send a message to others. In a sense, this is symbolic aggression and an advertisement about one’s ability to dominate. You.

Chimpanzees males throw objects, primarily sticks and stones, to “enhance” their charging displays.(37) Their aim is not to break bones, but to send a message: pay attention to me or you could get hurt.

Could get hurt. If. But if you bow down to me and obey, you will be spared my wrath.

As is obvious from my “Almighty Alpha” project, I believe the god of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament god, reflects apish concerns for dominance. If he had skin, my bet is the Bible god would be covered with fur.

Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: religion, status

Big males show other tendencies for producing loud noises, such as the habit of pushing over huge dead trees as they move through the forest, thereby registering their whereabouts with loud and dramatic crashes.
- Dale Peterson & Richard Wrangham (30)

When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. (Exodus 20:18)

Big noises are intimidating. That is why we have expressions such as “the drums of war.” Big noises such as drumming and trumpeting send an impressive audio signal: I/we are coming; beware of the power, you might want to run.

In many cases, primates will not sneak up on their opponents, but advertise their approach. As Jane Goodall documented when observing chimps, “Many of the components of the charging display-slapping and stamping, swaying of vegetation, rock throwing-produce characteristic sounds, which serve to enhance the intimidating effect of the charging display.” (31)

It seems the general theme could be described as “wining through intimidation.” An intimidated foe is more likely to flee before, during, and/or after a violent encounter.

Can we trace the origin of human war drumming to primate relatives? I think so. We share many social instincts. In fact, chimpanzees will themselves drum. “Some other sound signals should be mentioned. The most important is the drumming display, when the chimpanzee leaps up and pounds with hands and feet against the buttress of a large tree. This produces a sound that can carry over long distances (across a valley, for example). Drumming, like the charging display, is primarily a male activity. It is typically accompanied by pant-hoots and is frequent when the chimpanzees are traveling in large mixed parties.” (32)

While chimpanzees drum, baboons will trumpet. With their throats.

Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: belief, primates, psychology, religion