I am currently looking at the decision making process in acorn ants (Temnothorax curvispinosus). When cavity-dwelling Temnothorax ants emigrate to a new nest, they decide on which nest they should choose as a group via positive feedback. The benefit of making a decision collectively is that each ant do not need to see and compare all the nests themselves, thus avoiding cognitive overload. Previous studies only used the number of candidate nests to stimulate overload (Sasaki et al., 2018, 2019; Sasaki & Pratt, 2012) or focused on the ranking/weighting of nest attributes of colonies (Franks et al., 2003). In the current study, I focus on the relationship between the level of difference of candidate nests and the decision-making latency of acorn ants instead by using pair-wise trials on both individual ants and colonies.
Manakins are known by their cooperative mating dance. The alpha male calls a beta male (sometimes more than one) to join him and they will dance together in the lek. An interesting part of the “ritual” would be how the males coordinate with each other during the dance.
As my research in linguistics focused on the structure of language, I would like to explore similar issues in animals. Pigeons can discriminate complex images and remember sequential information. I wonder how the complexity of sequences and their cognitive capacity would affect their pattern learning experience.
Sheila S.L. Chan, Lawrence Y.L. Cheung (2020). Morpho-Syntax of Non-VO Separable Compound Verbs in Cantonese. Studies in Chinese Linguistics 41(2). [PDF]
Handout [PDF]