I am an NERC funded PhD student looking at context dependant choice, I am supervised by Sue Healy.

It is widely assumed that when making decisions animals assign each option a fixed value then choose between these options, always choosing the option with the highest value. Evidence from the human literature demonstrates that in humans at least this is not the case. Instead we make decisions that can be altered by the presence of other, even inferior, options. This is a violation of rational choice as; if we were behaving in a strictly rational sense then the addition of an inferior item should not alter the choice between the first two items at all.

This is now beginning to be demonstrated in studies which also show violations of rational choice in animals. These violations of rational choice can be used as convincing evidence for context dependant choice as it shows an alteration in preference depending on the number and nature of other options available. I will be using free ranging rufous hummingbirds to demonstrate context dependant choice in feeding preferences, with studies which imitate in design some of the marketing studies done in humans, this will enable the comparison of context dependant decision making in humans and animals.