Learning & Memory
The ability to encode and store information about how events in the environment are correlated has obvious survival value for organisms. We study the fundamental processes of learning and memory across a range of species, with the aim of understanding the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved.
Domhnall Jennings employs Pavlovian and operant techniques to study learning and timing, and to understand how animals learn not only about what has occurred but also when it occurred. His work is currently focussed on the development of a unified theory of conditioning and timing using the laboratory rat as a model species. Jeri Wright also uses operant techniques to study animal learning and memory in honeybees, asking questions about how animals learn about olfactory and gustatory cues when foraging. Her techniques also allow her to investigate which neural transmitters are important for learned associations to be made. Tom Smulders studies the role of the hippocampus in spatial memory in foraging birds, using food hoarding as a model paradigm to test whether birds have episodic memory, and how their memory capabilities might change across the seasons. This work also studies memory at the neural level, considering the role of seasonal changes in hippocampal size in relation to hoarding ability.
This expertise allows us to study learning and memory at various levels of analysis, from the basic mechanistic level to its evolutionary significance in free-living animals.
