I am currently investigating the development of perceptual capabilities for species specific vocalizations in the Zebra Finch. I train young and old birds to discriminate arbitrarily defined classes of a typical zebra finch song syllable, to assess whether the developmental trends discovered in human infants and adults (Werker et al 1984) with regard to non-native language perception also hold in the zebra finch, since it is also a vocal learner.

In a second project, I am studying observational learning in zebra finches, with a focus on trying to elucidate both the computational and the neural substrate for observational learning.

On a lighter note, I write short stories! (have a look :) thesilentmule@wordpress.com)