The Laboratory of Comparative Psychoacoustics
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The Laboratory of Comparative Psychoacoustics
Department of Psychology
University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742
Research in the Laboratory of Comparative Psychoacoustics is aimed at understanding how animals communicate with one another using sound and whether there are parallels with how humans communicate with one another using speech and language. Birds such as songbirds and parrots, like humans, rely on hearing and learning to develop a normal vocal repertoire. We often study budgerigars (parakeets), canaries, zebra finches, and other small birds. For instance, we have specific projects on vocal learning and vocal development in budgerigars, the regeneration of auditory hair cells and recovery of hearing and the vocalizations in small birds following hearing damage, and the effect of noise on hearing. Other studies focus on how small birds localize sounds, how they perceive complex sounds such as bird vocalizations and human speech, and how the bird ear functions.
For more information about attending graduate school
in the
Integrative Neuroscience program of the
Department of
Psychology at UMCP, feel free to contact
Dr. Robert Dooling directly or
call (301)
405-5925.
The Laboratory is partially funded by the
National Institute for Deafness and Communication Disorders, the U.S.
Army CERL, and is part of the Training Program in the
Comparative and
Evolutionary Biology of Hearing at the University of Maryland, College
Park. For further information about Pre- and Post-Doctoral funding through
the CEBH program, click the image below.
If you have any problems with this page please contact
Megan Shaw