Karen Hollis

Professor of Psychology and Education

Specialization
Experimental psychology; behavioral biology; psychology of learning

Karen Hollis’s research seeks to integrate the study of animal learning (predominantly a psychological approach) and animal behavior (predominantly a zoological approach). For some time she has been researching the way in which animals use learned signals to anticipate the appearance of biologically important events—such as food, rivals, predators and mates—and, thus, optimize their interaction with these events.

Hollis’s paper on the role of conditioning in reproduction won the Frank A. Beach Comparative Psychology Award for the best paper published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology in 1997. Its title was “Classical Conditioning Provides Paternity Advantage for Territorial Male Blue Gouramis (Trichogaster trichopterus).” The National Science Foundation, which sponsored Hollis’s project, called it “groundbreaking research,” and Hollis was dubbed “the Dr. Ruth of the aquarium world” in an article titled “Giving Fish the Red Light” on ABCnews.com’s science Web site. Hollis used fish to study how conditioning helps animals survive and reproduce.

In 2002, Hollis received the James McKeen Cattell Fund Fellowship, which supports the science and application of psychology. Dean of Faculty Donal O’Shea called the list of previous awardees “a who’s who in psychology.” The award enabled Hollis to spend a year away from campus to make the transition from studying fish to studying insects.

Hollis is associate editor of the scientific journal, Learning & Behavior; a member of the executive committee of the Pavlovian Society; and, in 2005, was elected president of Division 6 (Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology) of the American Psychological Association.

Hollis teaches introduction to psychology, laboratory in animal learning and animal behavior, and several seminars in the biological bases of behavior, including cognition, evolution, and behavior.

News Links:

"MHC's Hollis Edits Special Issue of Journal," Office of Communications, February 20, 2009

"Novel strategies of subordinate fish competing for food: learning when to fold," Animal Behaviour, November 2004 (PDF)

Karen Hollis interviewed  on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio show "Quirks and Quarks," October 23, 2004

"Psychologist Karen Hollis 'Goes Fishing' and Nets a Research Breakthrough," College Street Journal, February 21, 1997

Maintaining a Competitive Edge: Dominance Hierarchies, Food Competition and Strategies to Secre Food in Green Anoles (Anolis carolinensis) and Firemouth Cichlids (Thorichthys meeki) (PDF)