PSYC 3100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Stimulus Control, Social Intelligence, Survival Function
8 Dec 2015
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What about encephalisation: the enlargement of the brain, relative to body size, over the course of evolution. Encephalisation quotient (eq): the ratio between the actual brain size relative to the expected brain size of an average animal of the same body weight. Primates share prefrontal cortex with other mammals: orbitofrontal cortex: external rewards, anterior cingulate: internal states, regulation. Don"t share dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: reasoning and planning. We compare these two for two reasons: both sets of species exhibit complex cognitive abilities, the complex cognitive abilities are the result of convergent evolution. The brain is the physical basis of cognition, which refers to the mechanisms or processes by which animals act on mental representations of the world. Cognition: all forms of knowing and awareness, such as perceiving, conceiving, remembering, reasoning, judging, imagining and problem solving. Animals that don"t distinguish between nutritious and poisonous food or behave in a friendly way to predators, have been weeded out by natural selection.
