PSYC 3530 Chapter Notes -Bipedalism, Alister Hardy, Encephalization Quotient
17 Sep 2013
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Human language may derive from more-primitive forms of communication used by human ancestors. Kanzi, like all of us humans, belongs to the primate order, a group of animal families that includes lemurs, tarsiers, monkeys, and apes, all having diverged from a common ancestor. Cladogram-- a graph that shows the relative time of origin of various closely related groups. In the past 5 million to 8 million years, hominids, our humanlike ancestors, diverged from this ancestral ape lineage by acquiring characteristics that distinguished them from other apes. Genes are the functional units that control the transmission and expression of traits from one generation to the next. Three primary lines of research drive neuropsychological investigations with animals: (1) understanding basic brain mechanisms. The second goal of comparative research is to design animal models of human neurological disorders so that research about the disorders can take place on animal subjects (3) describing the phylogenetic (evolutionary) development of the brain.
