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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Characterizing Curiosity-Related Behavior In Bottlenose (Tursiops Truncatus) And Rough-Toothed (Steno Bredanensis) Dolphins, Malin K. Lilley, Amber J. De Vere, Deirdre B. Yeater, Stan A. Kuczaj Jan 2018

Characterizing Curiosity-Related Behavior In Bottlenose (Tursiops Truncatus) And Rough-Toothed (Steno Bredanensis) Dolphins, Malin K. Lilley, Amber J. De Vere, Deirdre B. Yeater, Stan A. Kuczaj

Psychology Faculty Publications

Dolphins are frequently described as curious animals; however, there have been few systematic investigations of how dolphins behave when they are curious and the extent to which individual differences in curiosity exist in dolphins. Previous research has described individual differences in dolphins’ frequency of interactions with environmental enrichment as well as quantifying curiosity-related traits of dolphins via personality assessments, though behavioral observation and trait rating components have not been part of the same study. The present study describes two different experiments designed to elicit curiosity in 15 bottlenose (Tursiops truncatus) and 6 rough-toothed (Steno bredanensis) dolphins. In Experiment 1, dolphins …


Engaging Undergraduates In Comparative Psychology: A Case Study, Lauren Highfill, Deirdre Yeater Jan 2018

Engaging Undergraduates In Comparative Psychology: A Case Study, Lauren Highfill, Deirdre Yeater

Psychology Faculty Publications

With many comparative psychologists teaching at small colleges and universities where resources are limited, maintaining a traditional animal laboratory housing rats or pigeons is not realistic for many of these researchers. One way to overcome this lack of overhead costs and extensive lab space, is to forge collaborations with local zoos and aquariums. Zoo and aquarium research projects provide a way to examine a wide range of species, which is an important tenet within the field of comparative psychology. Furthermore, many undergraduates are innately attracted to the prospect of working with exotic animals. Here, we propose utilizing visitor behavior research …