mardi 21 octobre 2014

Master Project

Do Ravens Modify Their Signals According to Their Audience's Comprehension?

We are looking for a motivated student for a master project at the Humboldt Research Group “Comparative Gestural Signalling” at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany


When people are not fully understood, they persist with attempts to communicate, in order to better convey their meaning. We want to investigate whether captive ravens (Corvus Corax) would use analogous communicative strategies in signaling, and whether they could distinguish different degrees of misunderstanding.

Terms of appointment and qualifications:
  •  The project should start in March 2015 and will last for 4-5 months
  •  Experience in behavioural biology would be beneficial
  •  Because of the rather remote location of our institute, a private car would be recommended



We seek a highly motivated person with organizational skills, able and willing to work independently. You will learn to interact with eight hand-raised ravens, to set up the observation schedule, film the behaviour and experiments, design and develop a coding scheme and analyze the behavioural interactions.

We offer the opportunity to work at one of the leading institutes for bird research in Germany and Europe and to learn methods in comparative research and behavioural biology.


Applications should include a CV, a letter of motivation and contact details of one referee.
Application deadline: 31.12.2014


For further information please contact:

Miriam Sima (Primary contact)


Group Leader:
Dr. Simone Pika : spika@orn.mpg.de

Webpage: www.orn.mpg.de/cgs