Exam 3: Genes, Evolution, and Environment

Match these descriptions with the appropriate concept. -The evolutionary process in which individuals with genetically influenced traits that are adaptive in a particular environment tend to survive and to reproduce in greater numbers than do other individuals.

Most psychologists would agree that the evolutionary history of our species accounts for human sexual strategies.

The central distinction between human language and other communication systems is that language allows for the generation of an infinite number of new utterances.

Language is defined as a system that combines meaningless elements, such as sounds or gestures, to form structured utterances that convey meaning.

Evolutionary biologists often start with an observation about some characteristic and then try to account for it in evolutionary terms. How might they explain the difference in the plumage of male peacocks when compared to that of females?

Match these achievements with the appropriate person. -He proposed the new field of sociobiology in 1975.

The strongest predictors today of the mates people actually choose are physical characteristics and facial attractiveness.

The functional units of heredity that are composed of DNA and specify the structure of proteins are called:

An intelligence quotient is a measure of intelligence originally computed by dividing a person's mental age by his or her chronological age and multiplying the result by 100.

An evolutionary psychologist would agree that:

Although evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists tend to agree about the results of opposite sexual strategies for males and females, evolutionary psychologists contend that sociobiologists:

Describe three stressful family circumstances that have been associated with reduced mental ability in the child.

What are the results of the two opposite sexual strategies of men and women according to sociobiological theory?

To transform surface structures into deep ones, children must apply rules of grammar.

Heritability is defined as a/an:

Because of the way that humans evolved, many of our characteristics either are present at birth or develop rapidly during maturation. Some of these characteristics, such as standing on two legs, are obvious. Name and describe five of the less obvious traits that are highlighted in the textbook.

What is the human genome? What is the current estimate of the number of genes in the human genome?

Identifying a single gene has been compared to searching for someone when all you know is that the person lives:

The average IQ gap between severely malnourished children and well-nourished children can be as high as:

According to Chomsky, children must apply rules of grammar in order to transform the surface structure of language into its deep structure. Create your own example to explain how two surface structures can have one deep structure. Then create another example to show how one surface structure can have an ambiguous meaning leading to two deep structures. (Be creative-don't use the examples from the textbook.)