91AV

Courtney Gill (Animal Behavior and Psychology '11) and Christina Perazio (Animal Behavior '11) authored an article, along with Associate Professor Teresa Dzieweczynksi, Ph.D. (Department of Psychology), that was published 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," 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 this research group has made key contributions to this research. The paper is the first to examine how prior experience affects communication outside of the classic signaler-receiver scenario.

The publication of this article marks the second publication for Courtney, who is currently working at the Aquarium of Niagara Falls, and the first for Christina, who is completely her first year of a Ph.D. program in Experimental Psychology at the University of Southern Mississippi.