Intelligence:

What is intelligence?

Intelligence: general cognitive ability versus specific skills

Measuring intelligence in humans

• verbal,
• spatial,
• working memory
• reasoning
  

Verbal and non-verbal responses scored,might be quite different
Two types of intelligence?

More than 2 types: "cognitive", "motoric", "emotional" etc.

Emotional intelligence of dogs is comparable to humans...

Human intelligence: what is special about it?

Theory of mind: what is it?

Theory of mind: I know what you know

I can think with your mind

I can act according to the information
I have about the information you have.

Deception task:
Autistic children performed worse

Theory of mind or emotional intelligence?

Many other tests with less emotional context (hidden objects)

Theory of mind: where is it

Neuroimaging: Anterior cingulate cortex

Anterior cingulate cortex: ThoM + emotion, arousal

Gallagher and Frith (2003)Trends in Cognitive Sciences
abstract, get full text through Science Direct or locally

Theory of mind: How did it emerge ?

Brain data on nonhuman animals not available

Behaviour level
Chimpanzees: of course
Surprising dogs: (Miklosi et al. 1998) dogs „know” whether master knows the place of hidden stick.

Birds? Of course...

Theory of bird’s mind

Scrub jays hide peanuts
Birds often steal food from storage
Birds who had the experience of stealing recache food items, if seen by others when storing
(Emery & Clayton, 2001, Nature)
see free Nature Science Update article

Theory of mind or programmed arousal?

Theory of mind: conclusions

It might be more than a single skill:

Theory of mind: not unique to humans

Language. what is it?

Human language:
exchange of unlimited information by limited number of symbols

Information about
events, objects far away in time or space

Symbols: verbal, written, gesture signs etc.
(channel is not important)

Language: where is it?

Critical areas:

Chimp homologs:

Not surprising...

Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas: Asymmetrical in size and activity in humans
(handedness in tool use)

Surprising: similar asymmetry in chimps (in planum temporale)
Cantalupo & Hopkins (2001) Nature
(abstract), see news item at BBC

Chimps:
handedness in gesturing,
bias enhanced during vocalization

Language. How did it emerge ?

Language skill in animals?

Great apes can learn to recognise symbols and use them adequately

Koko:
sign language vocabulary of over 1000 words
complex statements and questions
some signs were invented or slightly modified by her

signs used by Koko www
Conservation by Koko PBS

Language: grammar?

Symbols are recognised, used and modified

Connecting symbols: shaky ground

Grammar? Conditioning?

meaning (semantics) and structure (syntax) different skills

Study in humans:
sentences read to subjects during imaging

Sentences different in semantics or in syntax
Processed by different areas (Broca’s for syntax)
(Dapretto & Bookheimer, 1999. Neuron)

Language. How did it emerge ?

Gesturing in humans. When do you use gestures?

Emotional message <-> talking to foreigners
(makes sense)

Do you gesture while not being seen?
(does not make sense. Conditioning?)

Study on congenitally blind children and adolescents
(Iverson and Goldin-Meadow 1998. Nature), PUBMED 1, 2
Task: to convey difficult concepts
Blind and controls: similar gestures in form and frequency "gesture goes hand in hand with speech…" NSU

Experiment:
babies saw gestures of sing language

Babies responded with „babbling” gestures

Petitto et al. 2001. Nature. See homepage of Laura-Ann Petitto
for free articles www

Gesturing in humans. Evolution of real language?

Children develope their own sign language

Rhesus monkeys: facial expressions with distinct sounds
Experiment: video of faces shown + sounds presented
Monkeys looked at face normally coupled with sound original article www, NSU popular www

Matching face expression and
sound is not uniquely human

Language. Can birds speak?

Yes, of course…

African grey parrot Alex with Irene Pepperberg

Words of objects, actions, number, shapes, colors etc.

Concepts (same, different)

Grammar? Visit The Alex Foundation www

Language. How did it emerge ?

Donnow.

• Cognitive basis for symbole use (present in Alex)
• emotional gestures coupled with emotional sounds (present in monkeys)
• non-emotional gestures coupled with emotional sounds (present in apes)
• non-emotional gestures coupled with non-emotional sounds?
• Non-verbal rudimentary syntax first?
  

Like learning foreign language: add 5 words/1000 years?

Punctual evolution?

Small changes followed by big leap (power low)

Ferrer i Cancho & Solé (2003) PNAS www

Cognition. what is it?

Donnow.

Learning about rules, changing rules

Read the words then name the colours. Which task is more difficult? more on Stroop effect www

• Planning, attention, branching (dividing attention)
• Sequentiality (Pour coffe, add sugar, stir)
• Working memory (remember the question untill you respond)
• Numerosity (* ** *** ****)

Of course, birds know it all…

Cognition. where is it?

Prefrontal cortex (birds do not have cortex ?)

Damage of PFC: pour coffe, stir, add sugar

Imaging: Children with ADHD less activity in PFC

Electrophysiology: single neurons respond to ** or **** in monkey PFC (Nieder et al. 2002. Science, free www)

Hundreds of studies (human + non-human)

Is human PFC bigger?

Recent data: bigger, but not disproportionally

Similarity
Textbook data: 99% similarity
New data: 95% similarity (whole segments – or +)

Differences in sequence:
As expected during 5Myr of separation
Random changes + approx. 70,000 adaptive substitutions

Differences in expression:
Left prefrontal lobe: acceleration of gene and protein expression in humans (30% of proteins)

Only a few results:

FOXP2 a gene for language?
FOXP2: forkhead box P2 transcription factor REGULATION
Family KE:
Normal IQ
inherited speech impairement (motor coordination)

Effects expression of many genes

Human-chimp difference:

2 amino acid replacement
Positive selection
Spread 200,000 years ago

Could be a major factor behind the emergence of speech?

Probably not alone.

Intelligence. Conclusions

Intelligence. Questions

Small changes at gene and neural levels?

Resulting small changes at behaviuoral level were adaptive

Selective advantage: positive feedback?

Leaps in performance of cognitive and language skills?