Feedback Week 5 Quiz: Do our modern skulls house

stone-age minds?

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Welcome to the quiz for week 5, on evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution. Good luck!

Question 1
What is required for a trait to be a product of natural selection? (Pick 3)
Your Answer

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Explanation

There must be extremely sparse

resources, not just moderate competition
for fairly plentiful resources.

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Any competition at all is sufficient for

natural selection.

There must be extreme environmental

pressure, such as we find in the arctic or at
the bottom of the ocean.

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Natural selection can occur in any

environment.

It must be beneficial to the organism's

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There is nothing intrinsically adaptive

quality of life.

about having a good quality of life.

It must help the organism to survive and

reproduce.

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There must be variation in the

population.

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It must be heritable.
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Question 2
What is interesting about the adaptations of the beaver?
Your Answer

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Explanation

They do not contribute to the survival or reproductive success of

the organism.
They are passed on culturally, i.e. learnt rather then inherited
genetically.
They involve the behaviour of the organism, not just its physical
shape, and this is a feature rarely seen in evolution.
They have developed in response to an environment that
beavers have helped to create.
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Question 3
Which of the following are claims made by evolutionary psychology? (Pick 4)
Your Answer

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Explanation
Evolutionary psychologists believe that our behaviour
is adapted to a much earlier period of history.

Our cognitive capacities

have evolved, and are
therefore adapted to our
current environment.

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Our adapted cognitive

capacities are heritable.

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We will inevitably
continue to evolve and get
smarter.

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The human brain is a

product of natural
selection.

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Whilst it is fairly inevitable that we will continue to

evolve, it is not inevitable that we will get smarter. We
might even get stupider - see H. G. Wells' "The Time
Machine".

The human brain is

adapted to challenges
faced by our ancestors.

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All aspects of our

behaviour can be

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explained by natural
selection.
The brains we have now

Even the most extreme evolutionary psychologists

would admit that some aspects of our behaviour are
cultural or otherwise learnt.

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are the brains that our

ancestors evolved to have.
Psychologists had to
evolve in order to discover
evolution.
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"Psychologists", as a distinct species, have not

evolved. They are just well-educated homo sapiens
sapiens.

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Question 4
What is the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation?
Your Answer

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Any environment in which evolution can take place.

The historical environment that shaped the adaptations that we
have today.
The environment best suited to rapid evolutionary development.
The environment that we find ourselves in today.
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Question 5

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Explanation

What conclusion do Cosmides and Tooby take from the Wason selection task?
Your Answer

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Explanation

We have evolved to have better social skills because were bad

at logic puzzles.
We're very good at detecting when a social norm has been
violated, but pretty bad at generalising this to logically equivalent
situations.
We're very good at solving abstract logic puzzles, but pretty bad
at solving puzzles in social situations.
We're good in social situations, which means that we dont have
to bother about learning logic.
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Question 6
Why do evolutionary psychologists favour a modular view of the brain?
Your Answer

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Because it is more plausible, in evolutionary terms, to imagine

that the brain becomes more specialised as time goes on.
Because it turns out that the brain is constructed out of very
distinct anatomical modules.
Because it is more plausible, in evolutionary terms, to imagine
that the brain evolved to solve a series of distinct problems.
Because it is simpler for them to understand.
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Explanation

Question 7
What is culture, as that term is used in cognitive science?
Your Answer

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Explanation

Any system of knowledge or behaviour that is transmitted though

social learning.
High art, including theatre, opera, art-house cinema, and
literature.
Any language-based system of knowledge or behaviour that is
transmitted through social leaning.
Any system of knowledge or behaviour that has reached a
certain critical level of complexity or sophistication.
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Question 8
What do we learn from the fact that only some chimpanzee populations use a hammer and anvil to
crack nuts?
Your Answer

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That neither genetic nor cultural differences are responsible for

the behaviour of cracking nuts with an anvil.
That genetic, not cultural, differences are responsible for the
behaviour of cracking nuts with anvil.
This hammers and anvils are only available in particular
geographical regions.
That cultural, not genetic, differences are responsible for the
behaviour of cracking nuts with an anvil.
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Explanation

Question 9
Why is human language so incredibly flexible?
Your Answer

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Explanation

Languages are rule-based, so an understanding of the rules of a

language and the meaning of words is usually sufficient for
understanding completely novel sentences.
This is a trick question. Human languages are governed by rules,
and are therefore not flexible.
Human language is flexible because it only evolved over the last
5000 years, which meant that it was originally developed in diverse
environments. Had it evolved earlier, when humanity was less
geographically diverse, it would have been less flexible.
Human language is flexible because, unlike the communicative
practices of non-human animals, it is not governed by rules, and so
can be extended in novel ways.
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Question 10
How can we test the cultural account of how human language evolved?
Your Answer
Although we cant test the origins of human language directly, we
can study primitive language use in chimpanzee populations and
make plausible inferences about our hominid ancestors.
We can investigate experimentally how people learn language,
and develop computer simulations of these processes.
We can test this hypothesis by studying the very early origins of
language directly, as we have recently discovered written evidence

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Explanation

of these languages.
The cultural account of how human language evolved cannot be
tested. It is what Popper called a metaphysical research
programme.
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