Graduate and Postdoctoral Programme

Strategies & Optimisation
of Behaviour

By its interdisciplinary educational approach, the Graduate Programme "Strategies and Optimisation of Behaviour" seeks to establish a close connection between areas of biology, psychology, computer science and economic theory that investigate the behaviour of human beings, animals and technical systems. Strategies of behaviour and their optimisation will be the central aspect of research that will be addressed by different concepts and methods used by the single disciplines. Human beings and animals are usually able to react appropriately to external conditions. Autonomous technical systems utilised in complex environments also have to be able to adjust their behaviour to the current situation. In living organisms, adaptation processes leading to an optimisation of behaviour take place on different hierarchical levels and time scales: During the course of evolution, selection ensures that organisms have a species-specific repertoire of appropriate behaviours at their disposal which is maintained by diverse interindividual interactions. On a shorter time scale, the behaviour of the individual can be adapted to the environment by learning. As a result of both selection and learning, a certain behaviour has to be chosen by the individual from the repertoire of possible behaviours according to the specific situation. Accordingly, the research of the Graduate Programme can be divided into three areas: Optimisation of behaviour as a result of behavioural decisions Optimisation of behaviour through individual adaption to the environment Optimisation of behaviour as a result of interindividual interactions

Contact information:

Speaker	Secretary	Organisation and WWW
Prof. Dr. Martin Egelhaaf Room W4-134 Tel. (0521) 106-5570 Martin.Egelhaaf(at)Uni-Bielefeld.de	Heike Sieb Room W4-132 Tel. (0521) 106-6905 Heike.Sieb(at)Uni-Bielefeld.de	Katharina Tluk v. Toschanowitz Room M6-108 Tel. (0521) 106-2942 ktoschan[at]Techfak.Uni-Bielefeld.de

Postal address:
University of Bielefeld
GP Strategies and Optimisation of Behaviour
Faculty of Biology
Lehrstuhl für Neurobiologie
Postfach 10 01 31
33501 Bielefeld

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Layout by: E. Fujiwara, 16.03.2000
Maintenance by: K. Tluk v. Toschanowitz
Last change: 03.02.2004