“In the modern era some deaf humans have apparently acquired the ability to perform echolocation (sonar), similar to cetaceans.”
Did you mean blind?
Excellent article, thanks!
But here is also rising a question about animal intelligence. My cat (unfortunately) is more like a set of programms from the point of view of its behaviour, but its brain diagram is the same as in any vertebral. So does it support modules hypothesis?
Thanks for the typo find—I read the whole thing several times and didn’t notice. Presumably the low level recognition of the word was overrided by the high level prior without triggering any alarms.
Cats have the same overall brain architecture as primates and humans, but smaller. Generally the payoff for learning increases with brain size and lifespan. The smaller the brain and the shorter the organism’s lifespan, the more evolution relies on complex innate reflexes.
One interesting (but cruel) experiment which illustrates this is decerebration.
See this article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Basically the larger the mammal’s brain, the more they depend on learned functionality in the new brain (cortex + cerebellum) .
“In the modern era some deaf humans have apparently acquired the ability to perform echolocation (sonar), similar to cetaceans.” Did you mean blind?
Excellent article, thanks!
But here is also rising a question about animal intelligence. My cat (unfortunately) is more like a set of programms from the point of view of its behaviour, but its brain diagram is the same as in any vertebral. So does it support modules hypothesis?
Thanks for the typo find—I read the whole thing several times and didn’t notice. Presumably the low level recognition of the word was overrided by the high level prior without triggering any alarms.
Cats have the same overall brain architecture as primates and humans, but smaller. Generally the payoff for learning increases with brain size and lifespan. The smaller the brain and the shorter the organism’s lifespan, the more evolution relies on complex innate reflexes.
One interesting (but cruel) experiment which illustrates this is decerebration.
See this article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Basically the larger the mammal’s brain, the more they depend on learned functionality in the new brain (cortex + cerebellum) .