Cognition shapes how we perceive and react to our environment. Throughout my Master of Science, I have studied two major fields of animal cognition. My thesis first reports on the cognitive aspects of animal navigation in home ranging and seasonal migration, then I explore the development of group expertise through extensive experience with collective decision-making. The key contributions of the first manuscript (Chapter 2) are a condensed yet detailed summary of the behaviours involved in individual and collective animal movement, followed by research ideas to fill the gaps of the current literature. The key contribution of the second manuscript (Chapter 3) is developing an experiment to study group expertise, a topic that currently lacks controlled experiments, via testing the effect of experience on collective decision-making. This thesis expands the existing knowledge on animal movement and collective decision-making. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Cognition is the process of attaining, processing, and using information. Perception, learning, and memory are the main cognitive processes that are responsible for how we understand the world around us. In my thesis, I first review the cognitive processes involved in short-distance and long-distance animal movements. Secondly, I examine how a specific type of cognition, collective decision-making, improves with experience. Together, I reflect on various pillars of animal cognition, discuss my contributions to the field, and suggest further research ideas.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/27264 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Kashetsky, Tovah |
| Contributors | Dukas, Reuven, Psychology |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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