Abstract In 1905 the biologist Edmund Selous wrote of his wonderment when observing a flock of starlings flying overhead “they circle; now dense like a polished roof, now disseminated like the meshes of some vast all-heaven-sweeping net...wheeling, rending, darting...a madness in the sky”. He went on to speculate “They must think collectively, all at the

Humans not only can act intelligently in the world but consciously experience it, such as the delectable taste of Nutella, the sharp sting of an infected tooth, or the terror and ecstasy of a near-death experience. I will discuss progress achieved in tracking the footprints of conscious experiences to the posterior regions of the cerebral cortex,

Abstract: In recent years, the study of animal behavior in neuroscience has seen a significant shift towards more naturalistic and less intrusive methods. It is under these conditions that the true spectrum of animal behavior can be exhibited, free from the artificial constraints and stressful conditions often imposed by traditional laboratory settings. In this talk, I will focus

It is natural to think of vision as relatively primitive, compared to the richness of higher-level cognition. But recent work has revealed how perception is unexpectedly sophisticated along several related dimensions.  First, recent work suggests that visual processing spontaneously extracts not only simple features such as color, shape, and motion, but also properties more associated

Aiming to understand human psychology and what makes humans “unique” benefits from a frame of reference against which to assess it. Comparing human psychology with that of other animals, particularly our closest relatives, nonhuman primates, can provide such a frame of reference and thereby contribute to identifying the defining characteristics of the human species. Studying