You may explore and clearly test a hypothesis in any of the areas of animal cognition that we have discussed throughout the term.

You may explore and clearly test a hypothesis in any of the areas of animal cognition that we have discussed throughout the term.

Topics

1. Comparative Method and Intelligence,
2. Perception and Recognition,
3. Discrimination Categories and Classification,
4. Memory and Forgetting,
5. Spatial Cognition
6. Timing and Numbers
7. Foraging and Tool Use
8. Social Learning
9. Social Intelligence
10. Theory of Mind
11. Communication

You may use one of the many methodologies discussed in class or create your own.

Regardless of methodological details you should use a comparative approach. In other words you should look for cognitive/behavioural differences or similarities in at least two different species.

1. Appropriate title on a title page
2. Introduction, Hypothesis/Prediction – relevant research review with a rationale for the research to be conducted. You should have a hypothesis(es) and prediction(s) clearly stated. In fact, you can state “My hypothesis is…..with the following predictions……”. At minimum your proposal will have 1 hypothesis and a resulting prediction.
3. Methods – Explain your research in detail, including what your test and control variables are, the experiment that you will conduct and the statistical analysis that you would use. You may use a methodology that is similar (but not copied word for word) to a previously conducted experiment, however you MUST provide some justification for its use.
4. Significance – this section can be flexible in terms of content, however you need to provide an explanation of the reasonable significant contribution that your research may make. Whether that is a straightforward biological significance for the species itself or perhaps you take a ‘big picture’ approach and compare your study to some aspect of human behaviour or animal conservation.
5. Literature Cited – you must provide at least 10 peer reviewed references (not including the text) and use the citation style from the journal Animal Cognition.