Statistical Analysis of Behavioural Data

Now available in paperback, this is a how-and-why-to-do-it book. It presents sophisticated statistical methods for analysing continuous-time records of behaviour, aiming to integrate recent developments in ethology, mathematical modelling, statistics, and technology. These new methods are explicitly designed to handle sequential or simultaneous acts where neither the duration nor the sequence of the acts is predetermined, which is often the case if the time scale on which behaviour is studied is relatively short. The authors show how to analyse behavioural data starting with a basic model, the continuous time Markov chain. They then indicate how and when this model can be generalized and demonstrate the suitability of their approach for detecting, for example, the effects of different experimental treatments or of changes in the social or physical environment. Competitive interactions such as predator-prey or host-parasite are also good subjects for this type of analysis. There are eight chapters and many worked examples, leading the reader through the mathematical processes and their applications. Students and researchers in all fields of behavioural science will find this book incomparably useful for planning and performing data analysis.

ISBN 0198548508   Pages 414 ISBN13 9780198548508 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 633 Publisher Oxford University Press   Published in Oxford Imprint Oxford University Press   Height (mm) 235 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 160 Publication date 17 Mar 1994   Spine width (mm) 25 DEWEY 591.51072   Academic level Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC20

Introduction; Preliminary inspection of the observations; Analysis of time-inhomogeneity; Tests for exponentiality; Tests of sequential dependency properties; Simultaneous tests; Analysis based on a (semi)-Markov description; Examples of analyses based on continuous-time Markov chain modelling; Appendices; References; Author index; Subject index

 Be the first to write a customer review