Alarm Calls
Other Vocalizations
Development
Miscellaneous
Burned by the Cusatan Sun
100
These are the three classes of animals that pray on vervets primarily discussed in the text.
What are leopards, eagles and snakes
100
What sport discussed in the text encountered a vocalization issue that caused a racket?
What is tennis?
100
Which of the three areas of vocal development have been studied most extensively?
What is vocal production (in songbirds and monkeys).
100
When do infants begin grunting?
The day they are born.
100
What are the names of the Cusato's children?
Jack and Sammy
200
For which predator alarm call is there the greatest sexual dimorphism
What is the leopard alarm call?
200
In what circumstances to grunts occur?
Grunts occur in quiet, relatively relaxed circumstances and evoke no obvious response from those nearby.
200
Explain the three interrelated areas of vocal development.
1) Development of vocal production 2) Development of vocal usage 3) Development of appropriate responses of the vocalizations of others
200
Vocal development in vervets gradually occurs during what years of life?
What are the first three years.
200
What mountain range did the Cusatos get married on?
The Blue Ridge Mountains.
300
Identify the following alarm call responses in the correct order: 1) Run into trees 2) Stand bipedally and peer into the grass around them 3) Look up and/or running into bushes
What are the leopards, snakes, and eagle alarm call responses?
300
What are the four social circumstances in which monkeys grunt?
What are 1) Approach of a more dominant individual 2) Approach of a more subordinate individual 3) As they watch another animal 4) When another member of another group is spotted
300
Explain how the responses of infants progress over time from the three month to 6 month period in terms of their adult-like behavior, run to mother behavior, and imperfect predator response.
Adult-like behavior increases. Run to mother behavior decreases. Wrong predator responses are curvilinear.
300
Why do humans commonly show a right ear advantage when asked to distinguish one speech sound from another?
The perception of many linguistically relevant sounds is specialized in the left cerebral hemisphere.
300
What is the name of Dr. Cusato's band?
What is Dumptruck on the Run.
400
What were the results that Cheney and Seyfarth's alarm call playback experiments found? What do these implications of these findings
The results showed that each type of alarm call elicited a distinct set of responses. When subjects were on the ground, leopard alarms caused a significant number to run into trees. Eagle alarms caused a significant number of subjects to look up in the air or run into bushes, and snake alarms caused them to stand bipedally. These qualitatively different responses demonstrated that the different alarm calls alone, even in the absense of the predator, provide the monkeys sponses.
400
Explain the role that grunting plays in the transfer period of juvenile males into a new group in terms of the 1980 study. How does grunting help facilitate a social hiearchy (think in terms of communication via grunting)
Juvenile males looking to transfer will grunt at higher rates to the dominant male when they see him before they are officially accepted into the group. During the same period, the females also treat the juveniles as outsiders giving grunts to another group whenever the males come near. 12 to 15 days later, the vocalizations changed and the females vocalized toward the new arrivals with grunts to a dominant or grunts to a subordinate. Grunts to a subordinate allow dominate animals to interact with those of lower rank without being scared away, whereas grunts to a dominant give subordinate animals the opportunity to interact with those of higher rank.
400
Based on the evidence, do you feel that the verbal communication is innate, learned, or both in vervets? Discuss the implications.
Innate: From the day of birth, infants are able to produce a sound that is similar to an adults grunt. Learned: Infants learn to understand the relation between predator species, alarm call type, and response. Infants need experience before they can recognize species within a class that are genuine predators.
400
Explain phonological and lexical syntax, and do you think there is sufficient evidence that some nonhuman primates possess phenological syntax?
Phonological: callers take elements from the repertoire of acoustic signals and recombine them in orderly and predicatble ways to make new vocalizations. Lexical: the meaning of the compound call results from the sum of meanings from its constituent units. Discussion Q: Answers will vary
400
Who is the current faculty member at Centre who taught Dr. Burns-Cusato during her undergraduate years?
Dean Fabritius
500
What is the Cusato's wedding date?
November 15, 2002.
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