Psychology
Profile
MSc Ethology, Ecology and Physiology
BSc Zoology
Background
I joined the Psychology Department as a PhD student in October 2009. I completed my master in Eco-physiology and Ethology at the Louis Pasteur University of Strasbourg (France) in 2007 and studied Zoology as an undergraduate at the Henry Poincare University of Nancy (France). Before joining the University of Portsmouth, I worked as a Field Assistant for the Macaca Nigra Project, North Sulawesi, Indonesia (www.macaca-nigra.org)
Personal Homepage: jmicheletta.wordpress.com
Research
I’m working under the Supervision of Dr. Bridget Waller, Dr. Ed Morrison and Dr. Aldert Vrij.
My research focuses on a tolerant and understudied species, the crested macaque (Macaca nigra). I plan to take advantage of the pre-existing methodology and results to investigate the link between social tolerance et communication complexity. For my PhD project, I combine field observation of wild animal and cognitive experiments in captivity. The great amount of data already available in less tolerant macaque species will allow me to assess the influence of species’ social styles on their communicative system through a comparative approach.
This project is carried out in collaboration with the Macaca Nigra Project (German Primate Center, Department of Reproductive Biology, Junior Research Group for Sexual Selection) and Marwell Wildlife.