Teresa Dzieweczynski publishes article in Animal Behavior journal

Teresa Dzieweczynski, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Psychology, has published an article in the current issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Animal Behavior. The article, "Opponent familiarity influences the audience effect in male–male interactions in Siamese fighting fish," features two student co-authors, Courtney Gill (Animal Behavior and Psychology '11) and Christina Perazio (Animal Behavior '11).

This study investigates whether previous exposure to an opponent influences audience effects on male–male interactions in Siamese fighting fish. The findings suggest that audience type and the social history of the opponents work together to influence aggressive interactions in this species.

The study of communication networks has been an important area of animal behavior research in the past decade, and Dzieweczynski's research group has made key contributions to this research question. Their paper is the first to examine how prior experience affects communication outside of the classic signaler-receiver scenario.
 

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