Kerry Jordan

Biography

I am a Professor of Psychology at Utah State University. My program of research focuses on the development and evolution of cognition, particularly in the realm of numerical knowledge; I not only test the mathematical abilities of humans but also investigate the numerical abilities of nonhuman animals. In collaboration with Dr. Julie Young and Dr. John Shivik, I have particularly worked to bridge a gap between basic cognitive and ecological research, using coyotes as a model animal system to study decision-making about quantities in foraging tasks. Our research has shown that coyotes make systematic quantitative judgments (such as choosing the larger amount of food; e.g., Baker et al., 2011; Mahamane et al., 2014). We also contributed coyote data to a multi-site collaboration examining the evolution of cognitive abilities such as self-control across multiple species (MacLean et al., 2014). These experiments, however, like many studies of cognition in animals and humans, were usually conducted at one point in time, under constant environmental conditions, potentially failing to take into account ecological realities that, over time, may influence and constrain cognitive abilities in real-life decision-making. Cognitive abilities such as enumerating and timing are central to many psychological and ecological models of behavior, yet our knowledge of how these are affected by environmental fluctuations remains incomplete. We have thus most recently tested coyotes across all four seasons, examining effects of ecological factors such as breeding status and environmental risk on quantitative performance (Jordan et al., 2023). Understanding the effects of ecological realities on predator behavior is critical to society and increasingly important in the current environmental context of climate change and decreasing open space; knowing specifically how foraging behavior is affected by factors like breeding phase and human threat can aid wildlife managers trying to reduce human-predator interactions.