Research Methods in Psychology: Using Animal Models to Understand Human Behaviour

Discover how animal research has helped us understand how we perceive and learn.

Did you know that we can learn a lot about humans through animal research?

Animal models derived from invertebrates have helped us to understand the neurobiology of learning and memory. From cats, we have learned how visual experience informs the human visual system, and recent research has identified fish as a promising model to understand the genetic bases of learning disabilities such as dyscalculia!

On this course from the University of Padova, you’ll explore the use of animal models in psychology, neuroscience, and other biomedical research strands. This will be achieved through videos, papers, and interviews with some of the most important scientists in this field, such as Michael J Beran, Caroline Brennan, Cinzia Chiandetti, Giorgio Vallortigara and Anna Wilkinson.

Use animal models to answer age-old neurocognitive questions

By researching animal models, we are able to develop a deeper understanding of human neurocognitive systems.

The course will help you assess how animal studies are relevant in helping us understand the human mind, and see why animal research can sometimes provide more useful insights than human research.

As you investigate the role of animal research in helping us understand the age-old nature versus nurture debate, you’ll also tackle key questions around the topic of animal models, like ethical issues.

The final steps of the course will invite you to design an experiment yourself, using some of the most common animal models in the field.

This course is aimed at students and researchers in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, animal cognition, and animal care.

It will be of interest to anyone who wants to learn more about the use of animal models in research related to humans.

• Understanding animal minds from the outside
• Introduction to the course
• Behavioural and training tests
• Visual illusions in animals
• Ethical issues in animal models
• Putting it all together
• The nature-nurture problem and the contribution of animal studies
• Man is also an animal
• Important animal contributions
• Putting it all together
• Learning about learning through animals
• Learning about learning
• Learning better through animals
• Putting it all together
• Animal models of learning disabilities and psychopathologies
• Something smells fishy
• Animals and affective and psychotic disorders
• Putting it all together