By William B. McGregor
1) Involuntary bodily behaviour of animals such as erection of hair represent which of the following types of sign?
symbols icons indexes
2) The dances of honey bees shows evidence of a limited degree of displacement.
True False
3) The available evidence suggests which of the following is the most likely to be true?
bee dance is primarily culturally transmitted bee dance is primarily genetically encoded
4) Evidence of a critical period for acquisition of songs by some species of song-birds argues for a genetic component to songs in that species, and some degree of cultural transmission.
5) There is evidence that vervet monkeys alarm calls are to some degree culturally transmitted.
6) Which of the following best characterises the vocalisations of apes?
they are mainly culturally transmitted they are largely voluntary they are largely involuntary they are mainly used for describing the world
7) The number of vocalised calls used in natural (or wild) chimpanzee populations is approximately:
two or three about 20 about 100 about 1,000 Unlimited
8) The intentional gestures of chimpanzees are:
largely innate entirely culturally transmitted mainly iconic mainly used to direct attention of conspecifics for sharing interest in some object used for attracting attention to the signer and requesting action
9) The natural vocalised calls of chimpanzees show no evidence of internal structure, or possibilities of combination.
10) There is no evidence of productivity in the natural communication systems of any animals.
11) Study of natural animal communication systems reveals which of the following?
Animals do not use communication systems with the full potential of human language. Some animals are capable of using systems with the full potential of human language. Some animal communication systems show all of the design features of human languages. None of the preceding.
12) The novel name-new category principle is unique to human beings: other animals cannot use this strategy to determine meaning or reference of signs.
13) Why did early attempts to teach chimpanzees to speak fail?
Poor training methods: the attempts would have succeeded otherwise. For physiological reasons: chimps don't have the right anatomical hardware for human speech. For social reasons: the chimps were not properly socialised in human families. Bad choices: if smarter chimps were chosen they would have been successful.
14) Chimpanzees who have been taught ASL, plastic tokens, or lexigrams, are able to put signs together into sequences to form more complex utterances.
15) Sign systems taught to chimpanzees reveal no evidence of which of the following design features of human language?
displacement reflexivity productivity cultural transmission arbitrariness
16) Roughly how many signs have chimpanzees like Kanzi learnt?
two or three about 20 about 100 200 or so about 1,000
17) Evidence suggests that chimpanzees' use of signs is to a significant extent motivated by desire to acquire rewards, especially of food.
18) Evidence from studies of apes suggests that our common ancestors did not use vocalisations intentionally, but may have had intentional control of manual gestures.
Yes No
19) According to the yakkety-yak theory (the gossip or grooming hypothesis) human language arose for the purpose of:
cementing interpersonal relations among individuals informing others about the social world in order to identify free-loaders informing others about the material world in order to identify free-loaders to foster rivalries amongst individuals and foment breaking up of social groups, leading to emergence of new languages and societies
20) Does the available evidence from genetics conclusively prove that FOXP2 is the language gene?
21) Genetic evidence argues in favour which of the following two possibilities?
FOXP2 was a target of natural selection A single genetic mutation occurred in FOXP2
22) According to the looky-look (or social cognition theory) theory we have a language ready body (including brain), but that the last steps in the emergence of language were cultural.
23) Which of the following is false?
Many fundamental biological components and processes involved in human vocal production and perception are shared with animals The communicative systems and abilities of animals unassailably supports the gradual evolution of language from other communication systems Investigation of non-human systems of communication provides a useful perspective on the evolution of language Language evolution is best approached from various different disciplines
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