The Animal Behavior Program in Psychology provides training for students interested in a career in research and teaching. Most students who are admitted aspire to a position in academics; however, opportunities for employment in private industry or research institutes also exist. The program offers students training in traditional animal learning, comparative psychology, and cognitive psychology. Focus is on high quality training with intensive student-faculty involvement in joint research. Students are expected to participate actively in research with faculty members throughout their tenure in the program. This emphasis on one-to-one training allows students to acquire research skills while working on projects leading to publication or grant application. Each student will eventually develop advanced knowledge and research expertise in one or more of the animal behavior specialty areas. Currently three major research endeavors are underway:

• In the rat laboratory, automated running wheels are being used to investigate the effects of effortful responding in both operant and discrete trial paradigms. Recent projects have examined the effects of effort on incentive and behavioral contrast, behavioral impulsivity/self-control, and risk prone/risk averse choices.
  


• Metacognition in humans and rhesus monkeys: Opportunities for research with humans exist in traditional domains of metacognition research including ease-of-learning judgments, judgments of learning, feeling-of-knowing judgments, retrospective confidence judgments, and allocation of study time. Opportunities for collaborative research on metacognition in rhesus monkeys (e.g., uncertainty monitoring, judgments of knowing, information seeking) exist through our partnership with the Language Research Center of Georgia State University where monkey participants are housed and tested.

Students generally do advanced work with the members of the Animal Behavior Program faculty, however, depending on interests in particular specialties, students are encouraged to work with other members of the psychology faculty or in some instances professors in other departments. Involvement in research is expected to prepare the student for the thesis and dissertation projects and will hopefully culminate in several publications and/or presentations at regional and national conferences prior to graduation.

The Animal Behavior Program generally requires a minimum of four years to complete, with the last two years devoted mainly to research including the dissertation. During the first two years, the student will complete the general core courses which are taken by all graduate students in the department and the thesis research project. The experimental core courses are generally completed by the third year.
 

The specific goals of the Animal Behavior Program are to train individuals who are:

• Competent to teach statistics, research methodology, biological psychology, learning, comparative psychology, and cognitive psychology.
  
  
• Published in the field of psychology and have demonstrated potential for long term contributions to science.
  
  
• Capable in all phases of a research program including obtaining funding.
  
  
• Experienced in interdisciplinary research and knowledgeable in areas of science relevant to their specialty.