NialScorva

Laughing and crying in infants.


Extinguished or dominated? Either way, it's completely in line with *my* statement that you took exception to. Humans have a framework of instincts designed to facilitate there learned behavior, and depend far more on that learned behavior.

I'm not sure what you're addressing here. Nothing that I've said is terribly world shaking.

Dr Rick

Infants have instincts such as the "social smile." Adults, however, do not laugh or cry instinctively.

We're talking about instincts, which are not synonomous with "learned" behaviors nor "urges." Statements such as these seem to interchange the three terms:

<strong> There have been several references on this thread to parenting and other instincts; I question the existence of these in adult humans.

[ March 08, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

RufusAtticus

nevermind

[ March 12, 2002: Message edited by: RufusAtticus ]</p>

scigirl

Since when did this topic switch to "The best Nirvana album ever?"

And anyway, In utero is a close second!

scigirl

scigirl

So, not to confuse this issue furthur. . .but how does Piaget's theory of childhood development fit into this discussion?

That is, children first need to learn trust vs mistrust, then they learn concrete things,then they learn abstract things? Are these stages universal? If so, that may be evidence of an "innate" learning mechanism,which may be related to the morality argument. . .

How does instinct fit into this, as well as evolution?

Or do I just need to quit drinking beer and posting!

hee hee,

Scigirl

P.S. Dr rick have fun skiing! I am soooo jealous! I've got two beautiful ski hills here calling my name, but I've been too busy at the lab.

Vorkosigan

I am glad I don't like skiing!

Adults don't have instincts? rbochermond, do adults generally prefer the opposite sex, or do their preferences reflect random sorting of partners? I know many people who never eat a dish again if they had food poisoning from it once. A common instinct also found in animals. What about fear of heights and snakes? I guess we'll need to pin down what you mean by "instinct?" Is motherese an instinct? What about things like cheating on social contracts when the chance of getting caught is low?

Michael

Oolon Colluphid

I guess until you define what you are meaning by 'instinct' (to me, it means innate tendency to perform certain behaviours -- and learning is a behaviour too), further discussion is futile, but I've got to at least disagree with the above.

Having watched my three-year-old grow with at least half an eye on it from an evolutionary/biology perspective, it's obvious to me at least that she hasn't learned to laugh, cry and talk. These things came purely naturally. Instinctively.

She has, for sure, learned what to laugh at, and especially what sorts of speech sounds are the ones that work for communication with English-speakers, but the proclivity to actually perform these actions is pretty insuperable. Why do we have such well-developed Broca's and Wernicke's areas -- do these grow, like Lamarck's blacksmith's muscles, in response to usage? Hardly.

Crying is a little different in that she didn't need to learn what to cry at.

As for adults not laughing or crying instinctively, I can hardly credit you said that. Have you ever tried not crying at, say, a close relative's death? Have you ever tried not laughing at something that really tickles you? Yeah it can be done, but what, exactly, are you struggling to overcome?

Are you suggesting that when you laugh or cry, it's because you've learned that it is the appropriate social response to certain cultural stimuli ?

Why then does my daughter laugh at things that are not, to her parents, even vaguely funny (and are often even incomprehensible)? "[The toy] fell in the bath &lt;giggle giggle&gt;", as we had just last night. Course she'd learned that

Sure, what makes you laugh may be culturally determined, like language. But the tendency to do these things in some form is universal, as fundamental a behavioural characteristic of our species as a bower bird's building of a bower, a spider spinning its web, or a bird flying. Humans don't need to be taught to speak, they are taught what to speak. It's what humans do. It is, surely, an instinct.

Conversely, if some of these behaviours do not occur, the person will often be found to be eg autistic, and the brain found to be abnormal.

Cheers, Oolon the surprised and confused

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Dr Rick

Learned behaviors are not instinctive.

Innateness, learning, reflexive, tendency and instinctive are not all synonymous.

Your 3 year-old is not an adult; children are probably born with instinctive behaviors, but that does not neccesarily mean that adult humans have instincts.

<strong> Why are you bringing-up Lamarkian evolution?

I may be wrong and you may be right, but that's no reason for you to be insulting. If you had bothered to be civil, I might even have avoided mentioning your terrible use of the English language.

Have you ever tried not having a bowel movement? Yeah, it's done quite frequently, but do you know exactly what you are struggling to overcome? When the volume of stool in your rectum reaches a critical threshold, you have an urge to defecate, but your response is not instinctively controlled, and you have learned to inhibit the urge so that you only pass feces in socially acceptable places. None of this behavior is instinctive but is instead driven by urges and controlled by learning and reflexes.

The behaviors of crying and laughing are responses to a variety of stimuli. Sometimes the urge to do either of these things may seem irresistable, but that does not make them instinctive.

Are you suggesting toilet-training is instinctive? No? Then if you wish to have a civilized discussion, please don't put words in my mouth or create strawmen. Like a bowel movement, laughing and crying in adults are complex behaviors driven and controlled by urges, reflexes, and learning. What makes either of the latter more instinctive than breathing or passage of stool?

<strong> This is not an example of instinctive behavior; why do you mention it?

<strong> You are juxtaposing learning, instinct, tendency and reflex; they are not synonomous. A tendency, a reflex, and even a learned behavior can be ubiquitous and still not be instinctive. I'm not sure that one should compare the building of a spider web to acquisiton of language skills, and you have done nothing to show that they are similar other than use them in the same paragraph.

<strong> What is the relevance of this statement?

<strong> A more accurate statement would be, "Oolon, the rude and condenscending..."

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

Dr Rick

It was a powder day: I was instinctively drawn towards Vail.

<strong> Well, maybe...your reference on Evolutionary Psychology (see above) is an excellent introduction to the topic; the authors make a superficially persuasive arguement that humans have instincts.

Dig a little deeper, however, and some flaws become apparent. Cosmides and Tooby write:

The reference to Mineka & Cooke is an article on monkeys, not humans. The Pinker reference is to a book, not a study submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for objective analysis and critique before publication. The Garcia reference is a 12 year-old cite to an article titled Learning without Memory; how it is supposed to support Cosmides and Tooby's assertions is unclear. Many of the other references in the article are to Cosmides and Tooby themselves including the former's doctoral dissertation.

I can find nothing in the article you cite that empically supports the existence of instinctive behavior in adult humans; if I am wrong and this evidence does exist either in Cosmides and Tooby's article or elsewhere, please specify the evidence and its source.

<strong> Instincts are behaviors or actions, sexual preferences are not actions at all. How we act on those preferences can be called behavior, but the preferences themselves are more correctly considered drives or impulses as they are not actions. We may even choose not to act on those preferences, in which case there is no behavior though the impulse persists.

<strong> You are describing a classically learned behavior: a specific action is (negatively) re-enforced so as to not be repeated. A learned aversion is not instinctive.

<strong> Phobias are not instinctive; they are learned.

<strong> Okay; you first . Not even your reference gives a straightforward definition of the term "instinct." Here's what the authors say:

Once again, they reference Pinker's non-peer reviewed book. Is this really how one is to define the word instinct? If so, how does the definition distinguish instinct from reflex? Even the autonomic beating of a heart fits this self-serving definition: it is complex, reliable, requires no conscious effort or instruction, and is distinct from more general abilities; are we now supposed to believe that our hearts act "instinctively."?!

<strong> You lost me here, I'm afraid: "motherese"?

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Motherese is a well-documented cross-cultural phenomenon of speaking to the young in a certain style that you will instantly recognize.

Here is an explanation:
<a href="http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/monkey/ihe/linguistics/LECTURE9/9mother.htm" target="_blank">http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/monkey/ihe/linguistics/LECTURE9/9mother.htm</a>

This site says that the cross-cultural validity of motherese is in doubt. However, just type motherese in google and you can find pieces on motherese in Thai, German, French and other languages. It is rather widely demonstrated.

Tooby and Cosimides piece is an intro work. I suggest you go read []The Adapted Mind[/i], a more formal work. Pinker's book The Language Instinct is more accessible and as a bonus, extraordinarily well written and funny.

I find it hard to believe that you could claim adults have no instincts. Are you saying all adult behavior that is not automatic (like breathing or digesting) or reflexive is learned?