Meat was an important source of nutrition for ancestral humans (as it is today, MacDonalds aside). It has been suggested that the importance of meat meant that men often traded it for other favours such as forging allegiances or for sex (Stanford, 1999 – see pages 101,
130 and 131 of our A2 Complete Companion). Observations of animal and human behaviour have been used to support this ‘meat for sex’ hypothesis, however a recently published study says the suggestion is baseless. Gilby et al. (2010) conducted an observational study of chimpanzees over a 28 year period (see here and here) and found no evidence that males hunted more when females were most fertile, nor were they more likely to share meat with fertile females. However there continues to be evidence that supports the meat for sex hypothesis (see here). This study by Gomes and Boesch (2006) found direct evidence of meat exchange in another study of wild chimpanzees. It may be that males exchange meat on a long-term basis i.e. they don’t do it just when a female is fertile but provide meat continually so they can take advantage of fertile periods when they occur.
Posts archived in Eating behaviour
Dreams, drugs, intelligence, memory, infant brains, psychoanalysis, human evolution and many more – Loads of online broadcasts from Melvyn Bragg’s ‘In Our Time’ Radio 4 series to be found here – all free – it makes one proud to be a licence payer….
Loads of interesting material for sale on Ebay, including this IQ picture puzzle test from 1918.
Train your baby to grow up a genius? That is the idea behind a load of commercial stimulus materials such as the Disney Baby Einstein videos, books, flashcards, toys, and so on (seemingly anything marketable ). We have described these products on page 219 of the A2 Complete Companion, along with a study that showed that watching the DVDs can lead to a poorer developmental outcome. Now Disney is refunding the cost of the videos to anyone who purchased them!! The refunds are because a range of studies have shown that watching TV is potentially harmful for the under-2s, and linked early TV watching to attentional problems at around age 7. It would be interesting to know if the brain’s developing connections are affected by environmental input, something which has very tricky ethical issues but which might be abe to be done as a natural experiment. The emphasis on stimulating cognitive development is still on positive adult-child interactions.
Evidence Points To Conscious ‘Metacognition’ In Some Nonhuman Animals
September 18, 2009 by Adrian Frost.
(Link)
“For as long as IQ tests have existed, there has been a steady, progressive and ubiquitous improvement in the average scores people achieve at a given age, mainly because of a raising of the lower scores. On average, IQ is increasing by 3 per cent per decade. The effect is so strong that it implies that half of children in 1932, if given today’s tests, would score under 80 – the threshold for mental retardation.
Known as the Flynn Effect (after James Flynn), this phenomenon was initially dismissed as a result of changes in tests, or a reflection of better schooling. But the facts do not fit. Improvement is most marked in the types of test that relate least to educational content. Moreover, the effect is weakest in the cleverest children. It is a levelling-up phenomenon that results in a happy increase in equality.
After much agonising debate among psychologists, three explanations seem to make the most sense. The first is that (despite fast food) most children now get sufficient essential nutrients, vitamins, amino acids and oils to allow their brains to develop to their full potential. The second is that today’s children grow up in a world full of graphics, colours and chat, which stimulate their brains. Flynn prefers the third explanation: that the modern (smaller) family, even at the low end of the income scale, is now riddled with technology and intellectually demanding work – from paying bills to setting up computers. You can argue that IQ may not be representative of intelligence. But you cannot deny that something is getting better – and more equal”.
Full article here
A short presentation plus a great track, have a look at this.