Comparative Cognition and Behaviour

Research Focus

  • Spatial Cognition & Navigation - is concerned with how animals find, remember, and navigate to places, and how they recognize objects and scenes. Researchers in comparative cognition study spatial processes in animals ranging from insects to humans.
  • Neuroethology of Social Behaviour - we study how the process of sexual differentiation contributes to the development of individual differences in social behaviour. Researchers are interested in personality-like differences between members of a species, their underlying neuroendocrinological basis, and the development of sex differences may be involved.
  • Songbird Neuroethology - deals with songbird vocal production and perception. Researchers are interested in mechanisms of vocal production and perception, along with the effects of the early acoustic environment on adult vocal production/perception, and underlying neural substrates.
  • Individual differences in asocial and social learning - we have a broad interest in animal behaviour, with a particular focus on how learning and cognitive abilities allow animals to solve problems they face in the wild (e.g., foraging, vocal recognition of conspecifics, how to know what nest to build). We investigate the causes and consequences of variation in these abilities.

Associated Psychology Research Labs

Faculty

Lauren Guillette
Peter Hurd
Marcia Spetch
Chris Sturdy

Post-doctoral Fellows

Benjamin Whittaker

Graduate Students

Balasubramanian, Gopika
Blunk, Sara
Camacho, Andres
Deimeke, Moriah
Lambert, Connor
Prakash Kalpana, Archana
Sahu, Prateek
Starenchak, Holly
Stenstrom, Katie