• Question: What would be your next project or work about?

    Asked by Enrique2004 to Carrie, Cedric, Ellen, Ines, Rupert on 10 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Rupert Marshall

      Rupert Marshall answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      I have lots of projects happening at the moment including 9 new ones with my students. One project is a new branch, looking at how pictures of eyes can affect how people behave. When they put a picture of someone’s eyes above a bicycle shed, the number being stolen dropped massively. And when they put googly eyes on charity buckets, the amount people donated went up nearly 50%. I would like to know why this is and whether it applies to other animals too

    • Photo: Ellen Williams

      Ellen Williams answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      I am not sure just yet – but I am hoping it will either be more studies into elephants or more studies into social structure but in a different animal. I would quite like to do a little bit of work looking at wild elephants (in either Africa or Sri Lanka, or maybe both) when I have finished this current project – if for no other reason it would just be nice to have a little bit of sun!

    • Photo: Ines Goncalves

      Ines Goncalves answered on 11 Mar 2017:

      I’ve only just started working on my current project so for now, it has my full focus. Further down the line I would like to continue study parental effects in different species. Parental effects are influences that parents have on their offspring that are not just the result of passing on their genes. Fo example, how a mother’s diet or stress levels can affect her offspring’s health. This is a subject that has always interested me and something I would like to continue working with in the future.

    • Photo: Cedric Tan

      Cedric Tan answered on 12 Mar 2017:

      I’m excited! I am working on the the final bits of the effects of different types of games on students. And then I will move on towards creating new games for Engaging villagers on important conservation issues. One example is the issue of flying foxes in Indonesia where the village kids kill them for fun but the flying foxes are actually important pollinators of the delicious tropical fruit durian!

      Oh just an additional bit. I am working with a student on why long-term same sex-behaviour is uncommon in animals. Just thought I’d share this video about same-sex behaviour in animals:

    • Photo: Carrie Ijichi

      Carrie Ijichi answered on 13 Mar 2017:

      My next project will look at how personality relates to how a horse moves – we think the extrovert horses are going to be big flashy, expressive movers and this might affect how easy it is for vets to score when they’re lame. Another one will be looking at whether a special training headcollar really is better at getting horses to be obedient and finding out if it’s causing any stress in the process.

Comments