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X-WR-CALNAME:Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://bec.ucla.edu
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture
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DTSTART:20260101T000000
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20031103T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20031103T000000
DTSTAMP:20260505T014608
CREATED:20200922T213530Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201006T231359Z
UID:3938-1067817600-1067817600@bec.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Ann Senghas - The differentiation of grammatical elements in Nicaraguan Sign Language\nover historical and ontogenetic developmental timelines
DESCRIPTION:Ann Senghas: Barnard College of Columbia University\, Dept. of PsychologyThe recent emergence of a new sign language among deaf children and adolescents in Nicaragua provides an opportunity to study how linguistic features of a language arise and spread. New features that arise must be successfully transmitted from one generation to the next to survive as part of the language. During this transmission\, language form is shaped by both the characteristics of ontogenetic development within individual users and by historical changes in patterns of interaction between users. To capture this process\, changes over the past 25 years will be examined within two domains: expressions of manner and path of movement\, and expressions of spatial co-reference. These data reveal that\, as the new language is learned\, holistic and analog expressions are being replaced by discrete\, combinatorial expressions. It appears that these new form-function mappings arise among child learners who functionally differentiate previously equivalent forms. The new mappings are then acquired by their age peers (while children)\, and by subsequent generations of children who learn the language\, but not by adult contemporaries. As a result\, language emergence is characterized by a convergence on form within each age cohort\, and a systematic mismatch in form from one age cohort to the cohort that follows. In this way\, each age cohort\, in sequence\, systematically transforms the language environment for the next\, enabling each new cohort of learners to develop further than its predecessors.
URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/ann-senghas-the-differentiation-of-grammatical-elements-in-nicaraguan-sign-languageover-historical-and-ontogenetic-developmental-timelines/
CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20031027T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20031027T000000
DTSTAMP:20260505T014608
CREATED:20200922T213527Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201006T231359Z
UID:3937-1067212800-1067212800@bec.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Tim German - Acquiring an understanding of design: Developmental and cross-cultural evidence
DESCRIPTION:Tim German: UCSB PsychologyThe human ability to make tools and use them to solve problems may not be zoologically unique\, but it is certainly extraordinary. Yet little is known about the conceptual machinery that makes humans so competent at making and using tools. Do adults and children have concepts specialized for understanding human-made artifacts? If so\, are these concepts deployed in attempts to solve novel problems? In this talk I will review evidence from children’s insight problem solving tasks which suggests that there are changes in the way that artifact concepts organize knowledge in problem solving over the late preschool and early school age years. I characterize this as children beginning to take a ‘design stance’ with respect to their representation of artifact concepts. One effect of this change in artifact representation manifests as decreases in the flexibility with which tools are employed to solve novel problems. I will also present preliminary evidence for the possible effect of a ‘design stance’ on adult problem solving in a non technologically promiscuous culture.http://www.bec.ucla.edu/papers/German_10-27-03.pdf
URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/tim-german-acquiring-an-understanding-of-design-developmental-and-cross-cultural-evidence/
CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20031020T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20031020T000000
DTSTAMP:20260505T014608
CREATED:20200922T213526Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201006T231400Z
UID:3936-1066608000-1066608000@bec.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Peter Gray  - Pair-bonding\, parenting and human male testosterone variation
DESCRIPTION:Peter Gray : Charles Drew UniversityTwo hallmarks of human male reproductive strategies are the formation of long-term bonds with a mate and the provision of paternal care. These activities may\, in part\, be exclusive to male-male competition and mate-seeking\, the main components of mating effort. From a complementary\, mechanistic perspective\, the steroid hormone testosterone (T) may modulate behavioral allocation to male mating and parenting effort. I present a growing body of evidence addressing this proposition. This evidence includes four studies that colleagues and I have conducted in the U.S. as well as data on Kenyan Swahili men that help provide a cross-cultural perspective.http://www.bec.ucla.edu/papers/Gray_10-20-03.pdf
URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/peter-gray-pair-bonding-parenting-and-human-male-testosterone-variation/
CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20031013T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20031013T000000
DTSTAMP:20260505T014608
CREATED:20200922T213525Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201006T231400Z
UID:3935-1066003200-1066003200@bec.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Carl Bergstrom - Information in Biology
DESCRIPTION:Carl Bergstrom: University of Washington Dept. of BiologyOver the past 3.5 billion years\, biological organisms have evolved to acquire\, process\, store\, and transmit information. How have organisms evolved to handle the same problems with which we are confronted in this so-called Information Age: problems of information storage and processing\, problems of transmission and reliability\, problems of trust and deception? For all the attention that is directed toward the changing conception of information and its function in our world\, remarkably little is known about the broad role of information in biological systems. \nIn dealing with information\, similar strategic problems are faced across levels of organization. Moreover\, a similar process – evolution\nby natural selection – has generated the solutions that we observe. I argue for the value of a comparative theoretical approach to understanding the problems inherent in information handling\, using examples at scales from intracellular regulation to human communication.http://octavia.zoology.washington.edu/signalling/peacock.pdf
URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/carl-bergstrom-information-in-biology/
CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20031006T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20031006T000000
DTSTAMP:20260505T014608
CREATED:20200922T213525Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201006T231400Z
UID:3934-1065398400-1065398400@bec.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Jared Diamond - Environmental fragility: What was special about Easter Island?
DESCRIPTION:Jared Diamond: UCLA Dept. of GeographySome societies have suffered environmental collapses in the past (Easter Island\, Angkor Wat\, Anasazi\, Classic Maya…)\, while others have remained intact for thousands of years (Japan\, Northwest Europe\, Java\, Tikopia…). Some countries are close to collapse today\, while others are not. What makes some societies more fragile than others? Authors variously seek either geographic or cultural explanations. Barry Rolett’s and my recent re-analysis of Easter Island shows the importance of both types of explanations. Analysis of a data-base of 80 Pacific islands whose societies had widely differing outcomes reveals nine geographic variables predisposing towards deforestation. Easter was especially fragile on almost all nine counts. But there were also four cultural factors that contributed. In short\, collapses aren’t accidents.
URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/jared-diamond-environmental-fragility-what-was-special-about-easter-island/
CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20030929T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20030929T000000
DTSTAMP:20260505T014608
CREATED:20200922T213524Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201006T231400Z
UID:3933-1064793600-1064793600@bec.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Peter Sozou - Discounting the future: an evolutionary approach to ageing and time-preference behaviour
DESCRIPTION:Peter Sozou: London School of EconomicsDiscounting occurs when an immediate benefit is systematically valued more highly than a delayed benefit. This talk is concerned with understanding both the causes and effects of discounting from an evolutionary point of view\, as reflected in physiological and behavioural strategies of organisms.\nI’ll start by looking at the evolutionary theory of ageing. Extrinsic mortality (together with population growth where applicable) means that immediate reproduction makes a greater contribution to fitness than an equivalent amount of potential reproduction after a delay. This leads to the principle of the diminishing importance of the future. Ageing may be the outcome of a trade-off between short-term fertility and long-term maintenance. I will (briefly) present some new results showing conditions which determine whether an ageing or a non-ageing strategy will be favoured under such a trade-off.\nThe effects of ageing – declining fertility and increasing mortality – give an organism additional reason to prefer immediate over delayed reproduction in its behavioural time-preference choices. That is\, an animal should discount the future not only because of external factors (extrinsic mortality\, population growth)\, but also because of its own evolutionary response to those factors in the form of ageing. By this analysis\, ageing is both a consequence and a cause of discounting.\nUsing this framework\, a series of models is developed\, making different assumptions about external hazards and biological ageing. With realistic ageing assumptions – increasing mortality and an accelerating rate of fertility decline – the time-preference rate increases in old age. Under an uncertain external hazard rate\, young adults should also have relatively high time-preference rates because their (Bayesian) estimate of the external hazard is high. The middle-aged may therefore be the most long-term in their outlook.http://www.bec.ucla.edu/papers/Sozou_9-29-03.pdf
URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/peter-sozou-discounting-the-future-an-evolutionary-approach-to-ageing-and-time-preference-behaviour/
CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:-00011130T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:-00011130T000000
DTSTAMP:20260505T014608
CREATED:20200922T220233Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201006T231405Z
UID:4335--62169984000--62169984000@bec.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Jessica Lynch Alfaro - Comparative Phylogenomics\, Biogeography and Conservation of Neotropical Primates
DESCRIPTION:Jessica Lynch Alfaro: UCLANeotropical primates represent one of the most successful mammalian radiations in the Neotropics\, and all living platyrrhine monkeys in Central and South America stem from a single common ancestor from about 22 Ma. Neotropical primates exhibit extreme morphological and behavioral diversity\, from the tiny pygmy marmoset to the ape-like muriqui\, and they occupy not only rainforest habitats\, but dry forests\, savannah-like habitats\, and high altitude geography in the Andes. However\, about 45% of Neotropical primate taxa are now ‘red listed’ as threatened species by the IUCN\, and more information is needed to characterize Neotropical primate biodiversity. Fortunately\, studies on the phylogenetic relationships and evolutionary history of Neotropical primates have increased dramatically in recent years using collaborative international efforts at data collection and new techniques in genomics and biogeography. Here I present a comparative perspective of Neotropical primate biogeography\, elucidating the geographic barriers\, geologic events\, and biotic factors most important to shape the primate diversity we see today. I also discuss the impact that phylogenomic and biogeographic studies have had on taxonomy and conservation priorities for this important Neotropical group\, and consider what behavioral or life history attributes buffer some primates’ extinction risk in the face of anthropogenic change.
URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/jessica-lynch-alfaro-comparative-phylogenomics-biogeography-and-conservation-of-neotropical-primates/
CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:-00011130T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:-00011130T000000
DTSTAMP:20260505T014608
CREATED:20200922T214638Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201006T231409Z
UID:4130--62169984000--62169984000@bec.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Jacinta Beehner -
DESCRIPTION:Jacinta Beehner:
URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/jacinta-beehner/
CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR