PSYCH 1XX3 Lecture : 1XX3_Evolution.docx
11 Jun 2013
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Adaptations: biological traits that help an individual to survive and reproduce in its habitat. Adaptations perform a specific function that make an organism better suited to its environment: for example, your eyes enable you to recognize and respond effectively to things around you by detecting and analyzing the reflected light. Biological traits aren"t simply morphological; perceptual processes and behaviours are also biological adaptations. Scientists categorized as adaptationists use this label to describe how hypotheses about adaptive function guide their investigations. Cognitive psychologists study things like selective attention, and memory encoding and retrieval: attention, retrieval, and so on- refer to tasks that the mind needs to accomplish to do its job. In other words, they refer to the adaptive functions of mental activity: higher mental processes. Adaptations emerge in development as a result of the activation of relevant aspects of the environment. Natural selection: differential survival and reproduction of organisms as a result of the heritable differences between them.
