[PSYC 205] - Final Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam (163 pages long!)

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 205
• Professor: Valerie Ann Kuhlmeier

Document Summary

Theories of animal cognition presented by: aristotle (384-322 bc) and rene. 3 hallmarks of comparative cognition: examination of cognitive processes. Cognition: knowledge or thinking- examines how humans and animals acquire, store, and process information. Mental processes/activities used in perceiving, remembering, thinking, and understanding and the act of using these processes . Cognitive processes are internal: inside the organism"s brain: typically inferred from behaviour, experimental procedures. In lab setting or natural habitat (more difficult to control extraneous variables than in lab: evolutionary framework. Cognitive abilities emerge through the same evolutionary process that shape physiological traits. Reveal how a particular cognitive process functions in relation to certain environments. Studied why male grouse end up with a disproportionately large number of matings. Led to idea that females simply observe the mate choice of other females and then copied them (watching a male bird interacting with another female makes him more attractive) Determined: that social learning has a profound impact on reproductive behaviour.