Complex Vocal Learning and Three-Dimensional Mating Environments
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Our Precarious Earth and Its Biosphere
I. The Environment 1 The Earth’s Biosphere: Our Life Support System Our common shared biosphere is our planet’s life support system, capturing light via photosynthesis, conserving energy and matter, and obeying the basic laws of physics and thermodynamics. These laws are fundamental, governing all occurrences in the universe. All biological systems must abide by them. We must function within their confines. In spite of the universality of these laws, problems arise because of humans and their activities. There are simply too many of us for our planet. We are consuming too many irreplaceable resources and causing long-lasting planetary damage. This last problem is tremendously enhanced by human greed and a disregard by many for the biosphere. When our numbers were much smaller, our impact could be absorbed. This is not so today. Because we operate within the confines of the universal laws, we cannot continue to squander resources as we have in the past. Consider the following question: How much damage is caused to the natural environment in order to make a profit from the sale of a consumable item? Consider that many of the consumables produced are dispensable and often of minimal value. Realize that valuable resources must be used for their production. Moreover, these products ultimately become waste that must be disposed of, often in a manner that harms the environment. Why allow the continuation of activities that damage our common life support system? We already know that much of this damage cannot be repaired without a human population decrease. Why allow an increase in our population, recognizing that the consequence will be immense human suffering? Why allow resource consumption, pollution and global warming when we know that their continuance will prevent us from solving global problems and meeting the immense challenges that lie before us? We behave as though we have no regard for future generations. -
The Evolution of Human Vocal Emotion
EMR0010.1177/1754073920930791Emotion ReviewBryant 930791research-article2020 SPECIAL SECTION: EMOTION IN THE VOICE Emotion Review Vol. 13, No. 1 (January 2021) 25 –33 © The Author(s) 2020 ISSN 1754-0739 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073920930791 10.1177/1754073920930791 The Evolution of Human Vocal Emotion https://journals.sagepub.com/home/emr Gregory A. Bryant Department of Communication, Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Abstract Vocal affect is a subcomponent of emotion programs that coordinate a variety of physiological and psychological systems. Emotional vocalizations comprise a suite of vocal behaviors shaped by evolution to solve adaptive social communication problems. The acoustic forms of vocal emotions are often explicable with reference to the communicative functions they serve. An adaptationist approach to vocal emotions requires that we distinguish between evolved signals and byproduct cues, and understand vocal affect as a collection of multiple strategic communicative systems subject to the evolutionary dynamics described by signaling theory. We should expect variability across disparate societies in vocal emotion according to culturally evolved pragmatic rules, and universals in vocal production and perception to the extent that form–function relationships are present. Keywords emotion, evolution, signaling, vocal affect Emotional communication is central to social life for many ani- 2001; Pisanski, Cartei, McGettigan, Raine, & Reby, 2016; mals. Beginning with Darwin -
The Reflection of an Ape an Aquatic Approach to Human Evolution
The Reflection of an Ape An Aquatic Approach to Human Evolution A thesis submitted to the Miami University Honors Program in partial fulfillment of the requirements for University Honors with Distinction by Erica Kempf December 2006 Oxord, Ohio Acknowledgements There are a number of people I would like to thank for their help in the production of this story. Linda Marchant was my advisor and provided invaluable data, advice, support, and motivation during this venture. Lynn and Greg Kempf offered helpful feedback throughout, but especially during the early stages of writing. Mary Cayton and Scott Suarez kindly agreed to read the last draft of my project, and gave me final grammatical suggestions to further polish my final copy. I am also grateful to the people whose enthusiasm and moral support throughout the long process of writing this story kept me going: Amanda Zorn, Kait Jones, Ali Wolkin, Ashley Piening, Lindsay Good, Rachel Mount and Jamie Eckert. Special thanks also go to Randy Fiedler for the initial idea to begin this work and for his help in getting started. Table of Contents Introduction viii Map x Kinship Chart xi 1 Meer 1 2 Natte 13 3 Bain 18 4 Welle 22 5 Etang 28 6 Praia 34 7 Lago 39 8 Samman 43 9 Rio 47 10 Alga 51 11 Gens 56 Works Consulted 59 Introduction The study of how humans have come to be what we are has fascinated us for as long as we have written such things down, and for countless generations before that through oral histories. Every human culture has some type of creation myth, a tale of how people came to be on Earth, ranging from molded mud to thrown rocks to drops of deity’s blood and nearly everything in between. -
Science News | December 19, 2009 Feature | Humans Wonder, Anybody Home?
FEATURE | HUMANS WONDER, ANYBODY HOME? To prevent Shania the octopus from becom- Humans wonder, ing bored, keepers at the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C., gave her a Mr. Potato Head filled with fish to snuggle. Researchers anybody are now looking beyond behavior into the brain for signs of awareness in birds and invertebrates. home? Brain structure and circuitry offer clues to consciousness in nonmammals By Susan Gaidos ne afternoon while participat except for the fact that Betty was a New ing in studies in a University Caledonian crow. of Oxford lab, Abel snatched Betty isn’t the only crow with such a hook away from Betty, leav conceptual ingenuity. Nor are crows the Oing her without a tool to complete a task. only members of the animal kingdom to Spying a piece of straight wire nearby, exhibit similar mental powers. Animals POST WASHINGTON THE she picked it up, bent one end into a can do all sorts of clever things: Studies EARY/ L ’ hook and used it to finish the job. Noth of chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins and O ILL ing about this story was remarkable, birds have found that some can add, B 22 | SCIENCE NEWS | December 19, 2009 www.sciencenews.org FEATURE | HUMANS WONDER, ANYBODY HOME? subtract, create sentences, plan ahead objects in their visual field. “This raises or deceive others. the intriguing question whether con Brain-on-brain comparisons To carry out such tasks, these animals scious experience requires the specific In an effort to find signs of conscious- ness, scientists are identifying analo- must be drawing on past experiences and structure of human or primate brains,” gous structures (same coloring) among then using them along with immediate biologist Donald Griffin wrote inAnimal the brains of humans, birds, octopuses perceptions to make sense of it all. -
Going Beyond Just-So Stories Response to Commentary on Key on Fish Pain
Animal Sentience 2016.022: Response to Commentary on Key on Fish Pain Going beyond just-so stories Response to Commentary on Key on Fish Pain Brian Key School of Biomedical Sciences University of Queensland Abstract: Colloquial arguments for fish feeling pain are deeply rooted in anthropometric tendencies that confuse escape responses to noxious stimuli with evidence for consciousness. More developed arguments often rely on just-so stories of fish displaying complex behaviours as proof of consciousness. In response to commentaries on the idea that fish do not feel pain, I raise the need to go beyond just-so stories and to rigorously analyse the neural circuitry responsible for specific behaviours using new and emerging technologies in neuroscience. By deciphering the causal relationship between neural information processing and conscious behaviour, it should be possible to assess cogently the likelihood of whether a vertebrate species has the neural hardware necessary to — at least — support the feeling of pain. Brian Key [email protected] is Head of the Brain Growth and Regeneration Lab at the University of Queensland. He is dedicated to understanding the principles of stem cell biology, differentiation, axon guidance, plasticity, regeneration and development of the brain. http://www.uq.edu.au/sbms/staff/brian-key Just-so stories In this response to commentaries on the target article “Fish do not feel pain” (Key), I do not plan to interrogate either the putative behavioural evidence or the just-so stories previously proposed as supportive of fish feeling pain (Balcombe; Braithwaite & Droege; Broom; Brown; Dinets; Ng). These claims have been adequately addressed and refuted in recent literature (Key, 2015a and 2015b; Rose et al., 2014). -
The Coral Reef Environmental "Crisis": Negotiating Knowledge in Scientific Uncertainty and Geographic Difference Ba#Rbel G
Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2010 The Coral Reef Environmental "Crisis": Negotiating Knowledge in Scientific Uncertainty and Geographic Difference Ba#rbel G. Bischof Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & PUBLIC POLICY THE CORAL REEF ENVIRONMENTAL “CRISIS”: NEGOTIATING KNOWLEDGE IN SCIENTIFIC UNCERTAINTY AND GEOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCE By BÄRBEL G. BISCHOF A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Geography in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2010 i The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Bärbel G. Bischof, defended on May 7, 2010. !!!!!!_____________________________________________ !!!!!!Philip E. Steinberg !!!!!! Professor Directing Dissertation !!!!!!_____________________________________________ !!!!!!Ronald E. Doel !!!!!! University Representative !!! !!!!!!_____________________________________________ !!!!!!James B. Elsner !!!!!! Committee Member !!!!!!_____________________________________________ !!!!!!Xiaojun Yang !!!!!! Committee Member !!!!!! Approved: ______________________________________________________________ Victor Mesev, Chair, Department of Geography ______________________________________________________________ David W. Rasmussen, Dean, College of Social Sciences & Public Policy The Graduate School has verified and approved the -
A Novel Reinforcement Model of Birdsong Vocalization Learning
A Novel Reinforcement Model of Birdsong Vocalization Learning Kenji Doya Terrence J. Sejnowski ATR Human Infonnation Processing Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Laboratories UCSD and Salk Institute, 2-2 Hikaridai, Seika, Kyoto 619-02, Japan San Diego, CA 92186-5800, USA Abstract Songbirds learn to imitate a tutor song through auditory and motor learn ing. We have developed a theoretical framework for song learning that accounts for response properties of neurons that have been observed in many of the nuclei that are involved in song learning. Specifically, we suggest that the anteriorforebrain pathway, which is not needed for song production in the adult but is essential for song acquisition, provides synaptic perturbations and adaptive evaluations for syllable vocalization learning. A computer model based on reinforcement learning was con structed that could replicate a real zebra finch song with 90% accuracy based on a spectrographic measure. The second generation of the bird song model replicated the tutor song with 96% accuracy. 1 INTRODUCTION Studies of motor pattern generation have generally focussed on innate motor behaviors that are genetically preprogrammed and fine-tuned by adaptive mechanisms (Harris-Warrick et al., 1992). Birdsong learning provides a favorable opportunity for investigating the neuronal mechanisms for the acquisition of complex motor patterns. Much is known about the neuroethology of bird song and its neuroanatomical substrate (see Nottebohm, 1991 and Doupe, 1993 for reviews), but relatively little is known about the overall system from a computational viewpoint. We propose a set of hypotheses for the functions of the brain nuclei in the song system and explore their computational strength in a model based on biological constraints. -
Paleoasia Project Series 26 A02 2019年度研究報告書
表4 表1 「パレオアジア文化史学」 Cultural History of PaleoAsia パレオアジア 文部科学省科学研究費補助金 文 化史学 文部科学省科学研究費補助金 新学術領域研究 (研究領域提案型)2016‒2020年度 新学術領域研究 (研究領域提案型) 2016 計画研究 A02 班 2019 年度 研究報告 Cultural History of PaleoAsia ‒ パレオアジア 2020年度 文 化史学 計画研究 計画研究 A02 班 2019 年度 研究報告 A02班 PaleoAsia Project Series 26 ‒ 2019年度 ‒ 研究報告 ‒ ホモ ・ サピエンスのアジア定着期における行動様式の解明 ホモ・サピエンスのアジア定着期における行動様式の解明 4 4 門脇誠二 編 門脇誠二編 表 2-3 は白 第4回_14.indd 1 2020/03/03 12:21 Cultural History of PaleoAsia パレオアジア 文化史学 文部科学省科学研究費補助金 新学術領域研究 (研究領域提案型)2016‒2020年度 計画研究 A02 班 2019 年度 研究報告 PaleoAsia Project Series 26 ホモ・サピエンスのアジア定着期における行動様式の解明 4 門脇誠二編 第4回_本文 3.indd 1 2020/03/06 10:10 【例言】 ・本書は、文部科学省科学研究費補助金新 学術領域研究(研究領域提案型)2016– 2020年度「アジア新人文化形成プロセス の総合的研究」(領域番号1802「パレオアジア 文化史学」)研究項目A02「ホモ・サピエンス のアジア定着期における行動様式の解明」 (課題番号 16H06409)の2019年度研究報告 である。 ・「パレオアジア文化史学」プロジェクトの概要 や研究体制、活動予定、発表業績などの最新 版についてはパレオアジア文化史学ホーム ページhttp://paleoasia.jp/を参照されたい。 i 第4回_本文 3.indd 2 2020/03/06 10:10 研究報告 はじめに はじめに 本書は、文部科学省科学研究費補助金新学術領域研究「パレオアジア文化史学」2016–2020年度の 計画研究A02「ホモ・サピエンスのアジア定着期における行動様式の解明」の2019年度研究報告書で ある。これまでに引き続き、アジアに新人が拡散・定着した頃の行動様式に関する考古記録の収集 と解析を行った。 遺跡調査: 2019年度もヨルダン(門脇誠二)、モンゴル(出穂雅実)、インドネシア(小野林太郎)、 北海道(中沢祐一)における遺跡調査を予定通りに行い、ホモ・サピエンスがアジアに拡散・定着し た頃の行動様式を復元するためのオリジナルの研究標本を収集した。それぞれの調査の速報が本書 に掲載されている。調査の主な対象は、ホモ・サピエンスが拡散・定着した時期であるが、その時 期の行動様式の特徴を的確に把握するためには、その前後の時期も含めて調査を行い、行動の通時 変化を明らかにする必要がある。また、これまでに得られた資料の研究成果を確認するためにサン プルをさらに増やす必要もある。このように信頼性の高い成果をあげるために、着実な記録収集を 継続している。 また、今年度も調査現場での異分野連携を推進した。ヨルダン調査では、A03班の田村亨が光ル ミネッセンス年代測定のための放射線測量を行い、B01班の池谷和信が水場利用と鳥罠猟の民族調査 を行った。またモンゴル調査に関連して、古気候変動と人類行動の変化の関係を明らかにするため の共同研究を、A03班の長谷川精と共同で進めている。 -
Verhaegen M. the Aquatic Ape Evolves
HUMAN EVOLUTION Vol. 28 n.3-4 (237-266) - 2013 Verhaegen M. The Aquatic Ape Evolves: Common Miscon- Study Center for Anthropology, ceptions and Unproven Assumptions About Mechelbaan 338, 2580 Putte, the So-Called Aquatic Ape Hypothesis Belgium E-mail: [email protected] While some paleo-anthropologists remain skeptical, data from diverse biological and anthropological disciplines leave little doubt that human ancestors were at some point in our past semi- aquatic: wading, swimming and/or diving in shallow waters in search of waterside or aquatic foods. However, the exact sce- nario — how, where and when these semi-aquatic adaptations happened, how profound they were, and how they fit into the KEY WORDS: human evolution, hominid fossil record — is still disputed, even among anthro- Littoral theory, Aquarboreal pologists who assume some semi-aquatic adaptations. theory, aquatic ape, AAT, Here, I argue that the most intense phase(s) of semi-aquatic Archaic Homo, Homo erectus, adaptation in human ancestry occurred when populations be- Neanderthal, bipedalism, speech longing to the genus Homo adapted to slow and shallow littoral origins, Alister Hardy, Elaine diving for sessile foods such as shellfish during part(s) of the Morgan, comparative biology, Pleistocene epoch (Ice Ages), possibly along African or South- pachyosteosclerosis. Asian coasts. Introduction The term aquatic ape gives an incorrect impression of our semi-aquatic ancestors. Better terms are in my opinion the coastal dispersal model (Munro, 2010) or the littoral theory of human evolution, but although littoral seems to be a more appropriate biologi- cal term here than aquatic, throughout this paper I will use the well-known and common- ly used term AAH as shorthand for all sorts of waterside and semi-aquatic hypotheses. -
World Prehistory from the Margins: the Role of Coastlines in Human Evolution
Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in History and Archaeology Vol. 1, No.1 (Summer 2004), pp. 39–50 World Prehistory from the Margins: The Role of Coastlines in Human Evolution Geoff Bailey Professor of Archaeology, University of New Castle, U.K. ABSTRACT Conventional accounts of world prehistory are dominated by land-based narratives progressing from scavenging and hunting of land mammals and gathering of plants to animal domestication and crop agriculture, and ultimately to urban civilisations supported by agricultural surpluses and trade. The use of coastlines and marine resources has been viewed as marginal, late in the sequence, or anomalous. This bias is primarily the result of three factors: the removal of most relevant evidence by sea- level change; the bad press given to coastal hunters and gatherers by 19th century ethnographers; and a belief in technological ‘primitivism’. In this paper I will examine the case for treating coastal habitats as amongst the most attractive for human settlement, and coastlines and seaways not as barriers but as gateways to human movement and contact, from early hominid dispersals to the rise of the great coastal and riverine civilisations. Introduction The recent claims of a submerged Harappan city 40m beneath the surface of sea in the Gulf of Khambhat in Northwest India have re-emphasised the impact of sea-level change on the archaeological record, and the potential importance of the now-submerged landscapes and coastlines of the continental shelf. Just what the Khambat finds consist of, and just how much of the material dredged up from the sea bed represents genuine artefacts, let alone evidence of a submerged Harappan city at least 2,000 years older than its counterparts on dry land, will have to await detailed and expert scrutiny. -
Australopiths Wading? Homo Diving?
Symposium: Water and Human Evolution, April 30th 1999, University Gent, Flanders, Belgium Proceedings Australopiths wading? Homo diving? http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Symposium.html http://www.flash.net/~hydra9/marcaat.html Marc Verhaegen & Stephen Munro – 23 July 1999 Abstract Asian pongids (orangutans) and African hominids (gorillas, chimpanzees and humans) split 14-10 million years ago, possibly in the Middle East, or elsewhere in Eurasia, where the great ape fossils of 12-8 million years ago display pongid and/or hominid features. In any case, it is likely that the ancestors of the African apes, australopithecines and humans, lived on the Arabian-African continent 8-6 million years ago, when they split into gorillas and humans-chimpanzees. They could have frequently waded bipedally, like mangrove proboscis monkeys, in the mangrove forests between Eurasia and Africa, and partly fed on hard-shelled fruits and oysters like mangrove capuchin monkeys: thick enamel plus stone tool use is typically seen in capuchins, hominids and sea otters. The australopithecines might have entered the African inland along rivers and lakes. Their dentition suggests they ate mostly fruits, hard grass-like plants, and aquatic herbaceous vegetation (AHV). The fossil data indicates that the early australopithecines of 4-3 million years ago lived in waterside forests or woodlands; and their larger, robust relatives of 2-1 million years ago in generally more open milieus near marshes and reedbeds, where they could have waded bipedally. Some anthropologists believe the present-day African apes evolved from australopithecine-like ancestors, which would imply that knuckle-walking gorillas and chimpanzees evolved in parallel from wading- climbing ‘aquarborealists’. -
Quantification of Developmental Birdsong Learning from The
Quantification of developmental birdsong learning from the subsyllabic scale to cultural evolution Dina Lipkind1 and Ofer Tchernichovski Department of Psychology, Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, NY 10065 Edited by Donald W. Pfaff, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, and approved February 4, 2011 (received for review August 31, 2010) Quantitative analysis of behavior plays an important role in bird- The genome of a songbird was sequenced earlier this year (12), song neuroethology, serving as a common denominator in studies motivated in part by the goal of discovering the genetic spanning molecular to system-level investigation of sensory-motor changes (as revealed by comparison with the chicken genome) conversion, developmental learning, and pattern generation in that led to the evolution of vocal learning. In contrast to auditory the brain. In this review, we describe the role of behavioral analysis learning (the ability to discriminate between sounds), vocal in facilitating cross-level integration. Modern sound analysis ap- learning (the ability to imitate complex sounds) is rare in nature, but in birds it probably evolved in three out of the 25–28 known proaches allow investigation of developmental song learning across – multiple time scales. Combined with novel methods that allow orders: songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds (13 17). Aside experimental control of vocal changes, it is now possible to test from humans, vocal learning in mammals has been conclusively hypotheses about mechanisms of vocal learning. Further, song demonstrated only in dolphins, whales (18), and bats (19), but not in apes. Vocal learners share similar forebrain structures neces- analysis can be done at the population level across generations to sary to produce and acquire their learned vocalization (whether track cultural evolution and multigenerational behavioral processes.