Connectionists: PhD position in Animal camouflage available in Bristol University

[Roland Baddeley]

PhD position into a Computational and Psychophysical investigation into how
animals camouflage motion (or why the leopard got its spots)

This could potentially be explored using machine learning techniques so may
be of interest to this mailing list. The details follow:

A three year Qinetic funded case studentship based in the Department of
Experimental Psychology in the University of Bristol is available to study
animal camouflage. In particular the project will investigate how moving
animals minimize their visibility. There will be a fair amount of
flexibility on how this problem is approached, including approaches based on
1) psychophysics using human observers: manipulating various characteristics
of artificial animal camouflage patterns within natural realistic
backgrounds and observing which factors affect their visibility. 2) Natural
image statistics and the statistics of animal coloration patterns: viewing
both backgrounds and animal coloration patterns as textures, and using
machine learning techniques to look at the mapping between environmental
niche, and the coloration patterns displayed. 3) Looking at the
spatio-temporal statistics of animal environments with a view to seeing
which aspects of animal coloration will aid in reducing the visibility of a
moving animal; and 4) Constructing and comparing various simple ideal
observer models of predator/prey detection, and comparing these with
observed behavior.

This list is not exclusive, but as can be seen, the position would be of
potential interest not only to a behavioral ecologist that wants to learn a
bit of vision, but also a more computational person who would like to apply
their skills in a really very interesting area. The list of supervisors
includes people with interests and skills in areas ranging from motion
perception, to image modeling, to behavioral ecology, to the application of
these ideas to designing man made camouflage. For more information or to
apply, email Roland at:  Roland.Baddeley at bristol.ac.uk 

The last date for applications is September 23rd, and the starting date is
flexible but should be before mid January. Please when applying send a CV
and including the names of two referee's.

Supervisors:

Roland Baddeley (Department of Experimental Psychology, University of
Bristol)

Adam Shohet (QinetiQ)

Nick Scott-Samuel (Department of Experimental Psychology, University of
Bristol)

Innes Cuthill (School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol)