Comparative Cognition + 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 + 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
Post-doctoral Fellows
  • Benjamin Whittaker
Graduate Students
  • TBD