Psychology
Lavinia Tan
Postdoctoral Scientist
Quantitative analysis of behavior, choice and decision-making, animal cognition
Contact Information
Department of Psychology
Reed College
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.
Portland, OR 97202
ltan@reed.edu
(503) 517-5254
Education and Professional Positions
2005 B.Sc. (Hons. I) in Psychology, University of Canterbury
2010 PhD with Deans List Honors, Experimental Psychology, University of Canterbury
2009-10 Research Fellow, Public Health, University of Otago School of Medicine
2010-present Postdoctoral Scientist, Psychology, Reed College
Research
My research interests lie largely in the fields of comparative cognition and behavior analysis. Current research includes abstract concept learning and symbolic behavior in the context of numerical and quantity discriminations; the effect of environmental variability on social foraging behavior and the relationship between group and individual choice; behavioral economics, namely demand elasticity and substitution, token accumulation and savings, loss/gain symmetry.
Selected Recent Publications
Tan, L., Grace, R., Holland, S., & McLean, A. (2007). Numerical reproduction in pigeons. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 33, 409-427.
Tan, L. (2008). Effects of retention interval on performance in a numerical reproduction task. Behavioural Processes, 78, 279–284.
Tan, L., & Grace, R. (2010). Discrimination and representation of relative numerosity in a bisection task by pigeons. Learning and Behavior, 38, 408-417.