Projects
Contents
Projects¶
This term, we will conduct two experiments together. You may choose which you would prefer to be a part of, but we will try to get an even split. One experiment will use classical methods in cognitive psychology and involve human participants, the other will use methods from ethology and involve animal subjects (bats).
Replicating The Repeated Presentation Illusion¶
In the “repeated recording illusion,” participants listen to excerpts of music that are identical but they are mislead into thinking they are different. Each time the excerpt is played, it is preceeded by a different description that suggests the recording is of low or high prestige. A majority of people don’t detect that the pieces are identical and some even give detailed descriptions of how they are different. Elsewhere in the literature, the effects of marketing (e.g. the price on a bottle of wine), advertisting, and framing on individual behavior and judgment have been studied.
In this experiment, we’re going to replicate the repeated presentation illusion with stimuli of your choice, and include some additional manipulations.
Some questions/ideas to get you started can be found here.
Investigating vocal adaptation to noisy environments in neotropical bats (C. Perspicillata)¶
Bats are highly social creatures that live in groups of up to hundreds of individuals. It can get quite noisy in there, so an animal must find some way of making sure that its navigation calls (echolocation pulses) as well as communication calls avoid overlapping with surrounding noise.
In this experiment, we’re going to test how flexible bats can be with the frequency and temporal parameters of their calls in the presence of acoustic playback of a naturalistic sound (i.e. distress calls recorded from conspecifics.)
Some questions/ideas to get you started can be found here.
Slides containing an overview of the projects can be viewed here: