Danielle Wood

I managed and conducted behavioral testing with elephants in Chiang Rai, Thailand for a larger researcher project. This included developing and maintaining the daily test schedule, delegating food and supplies orders, tracking expenditures, and communicating progress to my supervisors.

In this role, I assisted with the daily walking tours and activities with elephants provided for the visitors, giving information in German, English, and French. Through these activities, I had the opportunity to observe and learn about elephant behavior and develop a better understanding of ecotourism and conservation efforts being made by the foundation in and around Thailand.

My main task focused on data collection with great apes as a part of a larger project focusing on curiosity and problem solving. This involved daily schedule coordination with the zookeepers, collecting data with a multi-camera setup, and making apparatus repairs post data collection. Further, I also coded previously collected data using BORIS.

I worked at both the MPI Eva and at the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center. I worked directly with the great apes by conducting behavioral observations, assisted in data collection for the behavioral studies, and created a weekly Enrichment plan. I also offered guided tours through the research center in English and German.

As a research assistant, I assisted with the recruitment and testing of participants for a study investigating speech perturbation which was conducted within the Dalla Bella Lab. This involved following an extensive protocol, booking weekly sessions for participants, and collecting questionnaire data from participants. I utilized a pre-written MATLAB script for data collection and gained experience with PRAAT by reading spectrograms from the recorded participant data.

During my internship, I assisted in the development of an experiment investigating the relationship of auditory-motor synchronization and reward during a running task. Further I contributed to the writing of the experimental protocol as well as obtained programming experience with Psychtoolbox and MATLAB.

I assisted with ongoing research project, Digital Transformation of Cultural Institutions in the State of Brandenburg. This involved research on cultural eduction and current technologies used in the concert hall. We also piloted using smartphones in the concert hall for program notes in real time and are currently evaluating the questionnaires for eventual publication.

I was elected a Student Representative for the "Cognitive Science - Embodied Cognition" program at University of Potsdam.

As part of my degree, I completed an internship with Dr. Peter Iltis, the Director of the MRI Brass Repository Project. During this internship I analyzed tongue and chin movements captured by sagittal MRI scans of horn players performing exercises in real time. Further, I obtained programming experience through taking an online MATLAB course and by utilizing previously created pipelines to conduct analyses on the videos. Lastly, I collaborated with Dr. Iltis to develop and publish a paper which presented th

I assisted in the collection of data and conducting of the experiment ,,Doppelaufgaben: Zählen und Zirkeln". Additionally, I assisted in writing the methodology section.

During this internship, I conducted research in the field of Embodied Cognition and collaborated with the lab on an ongoing project, investigating the effects of listening to music on arithmetic problem solving and math anxiety. I assisted in developing an experiment observing how music playing during mathematical problem solving effects emotions and created a literature review from the research which I presented through a final paper. Further I prepared presentations of my work and literature review findin

With the Fulbright Student Research Grant, I conducted research on phone usage in different concert settings and how listening etiquette has evolved throughout history and through the 21st century. This project was supervised by Prof. Dr. Christian Thorau and supported by the musicology department at the university. During this project, I visited and collaborated with the BBC Philharmonic Research and Development Team to learn about the concert notes app they utilize in their concerts and conducted a litera

Abschlussnote / Final Grade: 1,2 Master's Thesis Title: Explanation Seeking in Great Apes Advisors: Dr. Christian Kliesch, Dr. Daniel Hanus