Showing papers on "Dominance (ethology) published in 1977"

The mammalian brain and the adaptive advantage of cerebral asymmetry.

Abstract: During recent years there has been a remarkable resurgence of interest in questions relating t o the evolution of behavior. Biologists have always assumed that evolutionary considerations are essential for understanding the structure and function of living creatures. But psychologists, and particularly American psychologists, have, a t best, ignored the fact that animals evolved, and, a t worst, they have attempted t o demonstrate that an animal’s genotype (and particularly a human genotype, and thus the evolutionary history) is totally irrelevant for studying behavior. Such a position must necessarily argue that all the genetic variation for brain organization from which natural selection created the modern human brain suddenly disappeared some third of a million years ago when Homo sapiens first appeared, or else it must argue that genetic variations in neurologic structure have n o implications for behavior. The former argument not only is a t variance with known genetic principles, but also is contradicted by even the most cursory inspection of a few fetal brain specimens. The latter argument is mystical and has been refuted by observed co-variances between patterns of cerebral and behavioral organization, as for example, the association between handedness and the direction and degree of asymmetry in the size of the parietal o p er cu lum . I However, even if n o empirical data were available t o support the view that genetic and evolutionary factors are important for understanding behavior, theoretical considerations would force the conclusion. For any animal, behavior stands at the top of a hierarchy of organization (extending through the molecular, organic, and organismic) that serve t o preserve the animal’s life and assure the continuation of the species. Without a finely adapted behavioral organization t o coordinate the activities of lower-level systems, even if these systems had the most perfect mechanical and biochemical designs, survival and procreation would not be possible. Further, and most importantly, the more highly evolved is an animal, the more dependent is his biological fitness on behavior. For example, although the rate of heat loss from the body is slower for people with light than dark skins, a native Kenyan is as capable of surviving in Alaska as a Swede through the behavioral compensations he can and will make. In shaping the human family, the forces of natural selection have acted much more strongly in selecting adaptable behavior than in selecting uniquely human fixed structural traits. If information coded in the human genome guides the development of any aspect of man, then it surely guides those aspects that define his humanity. As Piaget has emphasized, in the primates and man, intelligence itself, and all the cognitive operations and behavioral patterns it implies, is a biological adaptation that allows its possessors t o construct schemas that encompass the entire spatiotemporal dimension of reality.2 It should be obvious, then, that those neuroanatomic organizations especially relevant t o the unique cognitive dynamics of man are the consequence of a bio-

Women's place in everyday talk: Reflections on parent-child interaction.

Abstract: In this paper, we compare the results of our previous study of interruptions in same-sex and cross-sex conversations (Zimmerman and West, 1975) with similar data from parent-child verbal interaction and find that there are striking similarities between the pattern of interruptions in male-female interchanges and those observed in the adult-child transactions. We use the occasion of this comparison to consider several possible interactional consequences of interruption in conversation, particularly as these consequences relate to the issue of dominance in face-to-face interaction.

Simultaneous speech, interruptions and dominance

Abstract: Simultaneous speech and interruptions are often employed as measures of dominance in observational studies of family interaction. This paper questions the assumption that these particular features of conversation are signs of dominance. Four types of interruption or ‘speaker-switch non-fluency’ are distinguished on the basis of data drawn from 7 1/2 hours of spontaneous, experimentally unstructured conversation. Three of these non-fluencies involve simultaneous speech. It is suggested that the classification of interruptions and simultaneous speech may not be altogether satisfactory in many observational studies of family interaction. Coefficients of correlation are computed for the four types of speaker-switch non-fluency and two measures of dominance. Only two of the non-fluency types are significantly (P < 0.05) correlated with dominance. The data presented here are not final or conclusive, but it is hoped that they will stimulate critical evaluations of various behavioural measures which are used in family interaction research.

Identifying successful industrial salesmen by personality and personal characteristics.

Abstract: Despite continuing research effort, little success has been achieved in the use of personality and personal characteristics to predict the performance of salesmen. From an empirical study, a set of...

The Power of Dominance Relations in Branch-and-Bound Algorithms

Abstract: A dominance relation D is a binary relation defined on the set of partial problems generated in a branch-and-bound algorithm, such that PiDPj (where Pi and Pj are partial problems) implies that Pj can be excluded from consideration without loss of optimality of the given problem if Pi has already been generated when Pj is selected for the test. The branch-and-bound computation is usually enhanced by adding the test based on a dominance relation.A dominance relation D′ is said to be stronger than a dominance relation D if PiDPj always implies PiD′Pj. Although it seems obvious that a stronger dominance relation makes the resulting algorithm more efficient, counterexamples can easily be constructed. In this paper, however, four classes of branch-and-bound algorithms are found in which a stronger dominance relation always gives a more efficient algorithm. This indicates that the monotonicity property of dominance relations would be observed in a rather wide class of branch-and-bound algorithms, thus encouraging the designer of a branch-and-bound algorithm to find the strongest possible dominance relation.

Lateralization of higher cortical functions: a critique

Abstract: The characterization of lateralization in man is one of the fundamental questions that has arisen in this conference. Evidence has been adduced for both morphologic and functional lateralization, but that chronic problem of biology -the relationship between structure and function-remains. A consideration of asymmetry in various paired structures of the human body illustrates one problem in the study of morphologic asymmetry of the brain. In most persons, the right arm is longer than the left and the left leg is longer than the right. These differences are due for the most part to the long bones of the limbs, but other bones of the body are nonrandomly asymmetric, too: for example, the ribs (right greater than left), the sternum (right greater than left), and the clavicles (left greater than right). Asymmetries associated with normal human development are paralleled by those associated with aberrations in morphogenesis, suggesting that many if not all aspects of left and right are genetically partially independent. Schnall and Smith' reviewed the nonrandom laterality of malformations in paired structures showing that some human anomalies, such as cleft lip, are strongly left-sided and others, such as aplasia of the radius and the fibula, are strongly right-sided. Teratogenic agents, such as thalidomide, tend t o affect one side of the body more than the other, giving further support for the notion of left-right genetic independence. But neither normal nor anomalous developmental asymmetries favor one side over the other overafl. In this context, is it reasonable to attribute any special significance t o any of the morphologic asymmetries of the human brain? Witelson2 summarized the research that shows that the asymmetry of the planum temporale is predominately left greater than right. She and others suggest that the larger left planum temporale reflects the functional dominance of the left hemisphere for language, the latter being a wellestablished research finding. However, if one considers other regions of the brain that are part of the speech and language system, the

Of Iguanas and Dinosaurs: Social Behavior and Communication in Neonate Reptiles

Abstract: Newborn and newly hatched reptiles show diverse types of social behavior. Aggregation behavior in snakes, dominance in turtles, vocalization in crocodilians, and synchronized nest emergence, migration, and foraging behavior in iguanas are documented. Such evidence casts doubt on inferences about a generalized reptilian level of social organization qualitatively inferior to that found in birds and mammals.

Two Approaches to the Concept of Dominance in Preschool Children.

Abstract: SLUCKIN, ANDREW M., and SMITH, PETER K. Two Approaches to the Concept of Dominance in Preschool Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 917-923. Aggressive incidents were observed in 2 preschool play groups. It was found that linear dominance hierarchies could be constructed for each group. Children were also questioned as to how they perceived the toughness of other children. Some, mainly older, children showed reliable agreement on a rank ordering for this characteristic. The rankings on perceived toughness correlated better with initiation of aggression than with observed dominance position. The findings are discussed in relation to the importance of social experience in children's cognitive development.

Musical Faculty and Cerebral Dominance

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the musical faculty and cerebral dominance. The concept of cerebral dominance, long related to verbal language and regarded as a fixed state of neurophysiological arrangement, has undergone considerable changes in recent years. For one thing, dominance can no longer be defined for verbal language only and may correspond to languages other than verbal and to skills other than those of language reception and expression. The intimate characteristics of the musical code are quite different from the verbal language code. Unlike verbal language, musical words and phrases bear no immediate reference to environmental reality. The way musical words combine into phrases and phrases organized into larger structures depends upon the rules of musical grammar current at the time of writing and to which the composer normally feels obliged to conform. Regarding the possibility of a dominance for musical faculty, one may say that there are powerful arguments in favor of a relative lateralization of nervous activity related to musical experience or execution. There is no obvious reason why cerebral dominance for verbal language should involve cerebral dominance for the musical faculty, and if there is a dominance for the musical faculty, this will be even less fixed than that of verbal language and, possibly, less consistent from person to person and closely related to the particular degree of musical ability exhibited by the subject.

The hypnotic induction profile (HIP): a review of its development.

Abstract: There has been a long-standing need for standardized measurements of hypnotizability appropriate for clinical use. Without measurements, the resulting clinical appraisals are ambiguous. Questions such as “Was the patient hypnotized or not?”, “What kind of trance was it?’, and “What difference does it make for therapy?’ cannot be answered. Ignoring these questions, clinicians who use hypnosis plunge ahead, using some technique (or ceremony) that “works.” In fact, many clinicians not concerned with the assessment issue make the assumption that all patients are hypnotizable and that inducing hypnosis depends solely upon the effort and skill of the therapist. Such ceremonies tend to be tailored for the therapist instead of the individual capacity of the patient. Also, consensual validation among therapists is not possible without a standard clinical monitor of trance experience, and further, trance capacity is not differentiated from treatment strategy. Clinicians have been left in this predicament bccause laboratory tests for hypnotizability are not feasible for clinical use for many reasons. Practically, these measurements take too much time (an hour or more) out of a therapy session and also may fatigue the patient. Some instructions are aesthetically inappropriate and perhaps embarrassing. There is also the insulting insinuation in the term “susceptibility” that because of a particular weakness, a patient is hypnotizable. Laboratory tests have been standardized on nonpatients (college students), and questions of the impediments caused by psychopathology or neurological deficits have not been considered. Additionally, laboratory tests are based on the assumption that hypnosis is sleeplike, despite the fact that there is no evidence to support this. I t is the opposite: attentive, receptive concentration. Asking a subject to “wake up” from a trance or referring to the trance as the opposite of the “awake” state represents sloppy thinking without data-based facts. Furthermore, it is the alertness of the patient in trance that is critical for the treatment interaction. The Hypnotic Indiiction Profile (HIP) answers the need for a clinically appropriate test of trance capacity, and it can be iiscd in the laboratory. A brief and quickly paced test.’ it takes five to ten minutes to administer and works as an alerting operation. Instead of testing a broad range of often embarrassing “hypnotic behaviors” in order to then predict the degree of

A suggestion concerning the cretaceous rise to dominance of the angiosperms.

Abstract: Authors from Darwin onward have stressed the mystery surrounding the reasons why the angiosperms became diverse and spread rapidly into the mesic lowlands all over the world during the Lower Cretaceous (Upper Albian; 110113 m.y. BP) and then assumed worldwide dominance after the end of the Turonian (90 m.y. BP; Takhtajan, 1969, p. 130; Stebbins, 1974, p. 209; Raven and Axelrod, 1974). It is now generally thought that they originated in tropical uplands or in areas of seasonal climte within or just outside of the tropics at least 125 m.y, BP (Raven and Axelrod, 1974), and perhaps much earlier (but see Doyle and Hickey, 1976). Janzen (1970) and many others have pointed out that competition and herbivore pressure, among other factors, have led to decreased population densities among the species of plants growing in the tropics. Insect pollination is predominant, and involves several kinds of strategies that insure the accurate transfer of pollen between widely spaced individuals, as outlined by Janzen (1971). Heinrich and Raven (1972) indicated that wind-pollinated plants are largely temperate in distribution; such plants must occur in fairly dense colonies, the existence of which seems to be precluded in the tropics, for pollen transfer to be effective. When the insect-pollinated flowering plants became predominant in the tropical lowlands some 90 million years ago, they did so at the expense of the wind-pollinated and wind-dispersed gymnosperms and ferns. Once they spread under these conditions, herbivore pressure doubtless caused them to diversify rapidly (Connell and Orias, 1964; Paine, 1966; Stanley, 1973), and probably constituted a major factor in their evolution, as suggested by Ehrlich and Raven (1965), Janzen (1970), and others. Since flowering plants are favored under warm tropical conditions more than under temperate ones, by virtue of their pollination systems, their occupation of the world's lowlands in mid-Cretaceous time might reasonably be expected to have been correlated with a warming in temperature. Valentine and Moores (1972), Valentine (1973), Axelrod (1974), and others have pointed out that the major changes in environmental regime due to continental movements must have played a leading role in the major waves of diversification and extinction among organisms. Specifically, Axelrod (1970, 1974) has correlated the rise to dominance of the flowering plants with the midCretaceous expansion of epeiric seas. Milder and more equable climates spread over the lowlands of Africa and South America as their movement apart, which began 125-130 m.y. BP, progressed toward a final separation just under 90 m.y. BP (Raven and Axelrod, 1974). At the height of the Upper Cretaceous transgression of seas, starting about 110 m.y. BP, some 40% of the continents were covered by water (Hays and Pitman, 1973), this leading to a great expansion of tropical climates which gradually contracted as the seas withdrew during the remainder of the Cretaceous. A warming of about 5-6 C in marine temperatures in the equatorial Pacific from 110-90 m.y. BP has been calculated by Douglas and Savin (1974) and is reflected for the period from the Cenomanian to the Coniacian (105-88 m.y. BP) in the worldwide temperature curves summarized by Scheibnerova (1973). This period of worldwide warming in temperatures is when the angiosperms rose to dominance in the tropical lowlands (Axelrod, 1970). It is postulated that their pollination by insects, a system that doubtless evolved earlier, provided a mechanism whereby they could occur as widely dispersed populations, important in an increasingly tropical ecosystem, and thereby gain a competitive advantage over the wind-pollinated and dispersed plants that formerly occupied areas of continental scope in the tropics. Once they had spread and become diverse and dominant, they were able to respond to further shifts in climate by producing evolutionary novelties adapted to the various kinds of new adaptive zones that have appeared during the remainder of their history.

An assessment of hemispheric specialization in monkeys.

Abstract: Split-brain monkeys learned several sets of visual discriminations with each hemisphere. Some stimuli, such as photographs of monkey's faces, were intended to favor mechanisms similar to those of man's nondominant hemisphere, while other tasks, requiring sequential comparison of visual stimuli, should favor mechanisms similar to ones in the dominant hemisphere of man. The tests uniformly demonstrated hemispheric equivalence for solving all types of problems, regardless of handedness, sex, or side of surgical retraction. A review of the literature also offers little support for the concept of hemispheric specialization in infra-human mammals although a few leads still need to be explored before abandoning the hope of finding the roots of human cerebral dominance in monkeys.

Sexual Stratification and Sex-Role Socialization

Abstract: Data on sex-role values of a sample of college women are examined to ascertain the effect of family structure, social class, and religion on sex-role values, and to support a structural theory of sex-role socialization. Patterns of dominance are found to be crucial within the family, and they act as an intervening variable between mother's education and work history, on the one hand, and sex-role values of the daughters, on the other. The relative occupational and educational resources of father and mother affect their power within the family. Sex-role values also are affected by social class, which defines options available to women and influences parental dominance. Religious background exerts an independent, but unexplained, effect.

The measurement of the construct of dominance and its relationship to nonverbal behavior.

Abstract: Summary The following essay briefly outlines some problems involved in the manner in which the construct of dominance has traditionally been assessed for human S s. It is argued that previous studies which have relied on a single paper-and-pencil measure as the sole means of dominance assessment are open to question because of the problematical response characteristics of the most frequently administered scales. In the study described below, 62 male undergraduates were administered the Bernreuter Personality Inventory, the Gough 60 Point Dominance Scale, and the California Psychological Inventory, and then they participated in an experimental procedure designed to assess their relative dominance as manifested in eye contact behaviors. The results indicate that hypothesis-testing outcomes across previous studies may be differentially dependent upon the particular measure of dominance which was used. It is recommended that future researchers attempt to map multiple verbal methods of dominance assessment aga...

Clinical and experimental hypnosis: implications for theory and methodology

Abstract: The seemingly inexhaustible techniques of inducing hypnosis implies that the induction of hypnosis has nothing to do with the induction procedure per se, and that the gradual development of an alleged state of hypnosis is an illusion, an artifact of the induction procedure. This illusion is reinforced by the progression of item difficulty on standard susceptibility scales, and by the impression of increasing relaxation in the physical and facial appearance of subjects undergoing an induction. I will present evidence supporting the notion that the obtained enhancement of suggestibility is immediate. If this is indeed the case, then its enhancement must be obscured by the administration of the standard susceptibility scales. Another implication is that the trait theory underlying these scales is inappropriate; to wit, giving heterogeneous items equal weight when they do not all represent the same underlying system or function. Quite aside from this conceptual issue, these scales suffer from severe shortcomings with respect to item difficulty, which can lead to erroneous inferences regarding the nature of suggestibility or hypnosis. An alternative approach to the problem of measurement will be considered after I present some of the conceptual issues surrounding suggestibility and hypnosis. My main argument, buttressed by hard data, is that suggestibility is increased simply upon the subject's adoption of a passive-receptive, open-minded attitude wherein she/ he waits silently for instructions. Operationally, this assertion reduces to that of persons silently following instructions, whether this be systematic desensitization, biofeedback, acupuncture, implosive therapy, alpha feedback, TM, exorcism, faith healing, a physical examination by a physician, LeMaze and natural methods of training for childbirth, being born again, or a formal induction of hypnosis. The obvious methodological implication is that there is the same enhancement of suggestibility for waking-resting, simulating, and imagination-control groups. The assessment of suggestibility involves its enhancement, and the shared goals of the participants function as suggestions. To explain this alleged enhancement of suggestibility, I have been exploring the explanatory value of the two disparate modes of information processing believed to characterize the two cerebral hemispheres. With respect to perception, the right cerebral hemisphere subjects different sources of sensory input to synthesizing Gestalt principles while under the modulating influence of the neural records of past perceptions. This influence is mediated by analogical functions 'l (seeing sameness in differences) along gradients of similarity (physical, functional, and qualitative). Fresh perceptions are effortlessly and I

Status Interactions of Captive Female Lowland Gorillas

Abstract: Agonistic interactions and incentive competition data were examined both under paired confrontations and during a 2-month group living situation. These preliminary data suggest the presence of interac