Animal Research Center
The Animal Research Center is the hub for research on animal behavior and cognition research within the School of Psychology. Psychology is the scientific study of minds and behavior, and understanding nonhuman animals is essential to uncovering the evolutionary origins of both.
By examining how animals perceive, learn, and interact with their environments, we gain valuable insight into the biological foundations of cognition and behavior, including our own. While our research emphasizes nonhuman primates due to their close evolutionary relationship to humans, we also study a range of other species to better understand the diversity and development of cognitive processes across the animal kingdom.
The Animal Research Center includes two core facilities: the Florida Tech Animal Research Outpost at Brevard Zoo and the Roach Lab on Florida Tech’s main campus. You can learn more about each below.
Florida Tech Animal Research Outpost at Brevard Zoo
To study these primates, we collaborate with Brevard Zoo to work with the primates under their care. We are particularly interested in complex social behaviors such as cooperation, behavioral economics, and social knowledge. Currently, much of our research focuses on spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) as they share interesting behavioral traits with both humans (Homo sapiens) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). These commonalities suggest similar cognitive abilities, however, spider monkeys have not been as thoroughly studied as humans and chimpanzees, making this an exciting line of research.
Brevard Zoo opened its new Spider Monkey Complex in 2020. This complex was designed with input from Darby Proctor, Ph.D. in order to simulate the complex fission-fusion social structure these monkeys exhibit in the wild. In the Spider Monkey Complex, three habitats are connected to each other through a series of sky trails allowing the monkeys to make choices about with whom they spend time, just as they would in the wild. When animals exhibit species-typical behavior, this indicates that the animals are thriving under our care.
An amazing feature of the Spider Monkey Complex is the Animal Cognitive Research Center, which was designed for conducting voluntary behavioral research with these fascinating animals. The Florida Tech Animal Research Outpost at the Center allows researchers like Darby Proctor, Ph.D., and Catherine F. Talbot, Ph.D., to work with the monkeys individually and explore the bounds of their cognitive abilities. All research at the Center is conducted in front of zoo guests so that we can all learn from these monkeys.
Roach Lab at Florida Tech
We also run the undergraduate psychology Roach Lab, which enables students to gain hands-on experience with animals on campus.
We hope that this initiative expands to other universities so that more students can participate in these kinds of experiences as part of their undergraduate psychology curriculum. To facilitate this, we developed the roach lab website as a resource for other faculty and universities to aid in starting their own Roach Labs.