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Will Allen

2nd Year Postgraduate
Supervisors : Professor Innes Cuthill and Dr Nick Scott-Samuel

telephone: +44 (0)117 92 46621 email: Will.Allen@bristol.ac.uk

1.4, 5 Priory Road

Biographical Details

I graduated from the University of Bristol in 2005 with a BSc (Hons) in Experimental Psychology. I did my final year dissertation on microsaccade characteristics in migraineurs and their relationship with illusory experiences. I returned to Bristol in 2007 to do the Vision Research MRes. I did a project with Roland Baddeley to develop a methodology for measuring visual prior knowledge and Innes Cuthill on an experiment to investigate the principle of differential blending in disruptive camouflage. I am now beginning the second year of my BBSRC funded PhD investigating animal camouflage colouration, supervised by Innes Cuthill (Biological Sciences) and Nick Scott-Samuel (Experimental Psychology) and working closely with Roland Baddeley (Experimental Psychology).


Research Interests

I’m interested in synthesising multiple approaches to tackle some of the outstanding questions of animal camouflage. What is the significance of the colours and patterns observed on animals in nature? Which camouflage strategies (e.g. background matching, disruptive camouflage, self-shadow concealment) do different animals adopt and why?

Using techniques inspired by reaction-diffusion theories of biological pattern formation I’ve created a quantitative ‘camouflage space’. Species’ positions in this space are then correlated with environmental, behavioural and ecological variables. This analysis is giving new insights into questions such as: “Why is a Cheetah spotty not stripy?” and “Which habitats select for which patterns?”. I am also taking a similar approach to investigating the phenomenon of countershading to learn which animals use if for self-shadow concealment, which don’t and why.

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