Research

My Masters by Research is on the so-called 'confusion effect' whereby predators have increased difficulty in tracking and targeting a prey item in larger groups. Conversely, the ‘oddity effect’ is the cost to a prey animal of being different from the crowd: a predator targeting the odd-one-out suffers less ‘confusion’. While the confusion and oddity effects are usually thought of as applying in moving groups, in principle some of the same effects may be seen in static objects. My research comprises a systematic, experimental, investigation of the conditions under which confusion-like effects do, or do not, apply in both static and moving groups.

Biography

I graduated with a BSc in Biology from the University of Bristol in 2024. I am currently studying for a MSc(R) supervised by Professors Innes Cuthill (School of Biological Sciences) and Nick Scott-Samuel (School of Psychological Science).

Publications