Dr. Andy Lattal’s Laboratory
Behavioral Processes Governing Cooperation and Other Social Behavior. Dr. Lattal’s research laboratory has been concerned for many years with basic learning processes of animals. Continuing lines of research include the strengthening and discriminative effects of the response-reinforcer dependency (both delayed and response-independent reinforcement) on operant responding31. During the past five years, largely through the efforts and collaboration of undergraduates, Dr. Lattal has shifted a portion of the lab’s activity to the analysis of social behavior, particularly imitation by and cooperation between animals (pigeons)32. These studies provide a framework for understanding the fundamental behavioral processes underlying cooperation33, especially how the environment can be arranged in ways that facilitate or hinder the likelihood of cooperation32,34,35. In these studies, pigeons are placed in a variety of different environmental contexts and are able to earn food (e.g., grain) or social (e.g., visual access to another pigeon) reinforcers based on independent or cooperative behavior. Variables such as the ability to observe another pigeon engaging in cooperative behavior, the frequency of consequences for cooperation, and the overall housing or experimental conditions are directly modified in a logical progression of experimental questions to explore ways to develop cooperative behavior and to understand social behavior of non-human animals.
REU participants will lead a study within the ongoing line of research on cooperative and coordinated behavior. Participants will work with Dr. Lattal to develop a research question, design and carry out a study (including animal training phases and running experimental sessions), and analyze the data. REU participants will learn to adapt specialized hardware and software conducive to the observation and measurement of social responses in animals.
