Sarah Zylinski, Postdoctoral Associate  

Sarah Zylinski

Education:
PhD Neuroscience, University of Sussex, UK

Office Location: 222 Biological Sciences Building
Office Phone: (919) 684-7188
Email Address: s.zylinski@duke.edu

Specialties:
Organismal Biology and Behavior

Research Categories: Marine Visual Ecology

Research Description: My primary interest is what camouflage can tell us about non-human visual perception. Cephalopods offer a unique insight into this, because in very simple terms they tell us what they perceive in their visual environment by the body patterns they produce for camouflage. More generally, I'm excited about visual communication (signalling) and camouflage (non-signalling), particularly in the marine environment (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/12935963). My research here in the Johnsen Lab gives me access to awesome facilities such as the Sub-Sea Holodeck, built by collaborators from the Jaffe Lab at Scripps (http://jaffeweb.ucsd.edu/index.php/v/researchphotos/Holodeck/holodeck_timelapse.flv.html?q=gallery), and the opportunity to extend my interests into the deep-sea by taking part in research cruises (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15654086). My research integrates the fields of psychology, animal behavior and visual ecology.

Areas of Interest:
Camouflage
Marine visual signaling
Underwater vision
Fish and cephalopod coloration
Visual behavior

Recent Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

  1. Zylinski, Darmaillacq & Shashar, Visual interpolation for contour completion by the cuttlefish Sepia officinalis and its use in dynamic camouflage, Proceedings of the Royal Society, B (Accepted, 2012) .
  2. Zylinski & Johnsen, Mesopelagic cephalopods switch rapidly between transparency and pigmentation to optimise camouflage in the deep, Current Biology, vol. 21 no. 22 (Winter, 2011), pp. 1937–1941 .
  3. Zylinski & Osorio, What can camouflage tell us about non-human visual perception? A case study of multiple cue use in the cuttlefish, in Animal Camouflage: Mechanisms and Function, edited by Stevens & Merilaita (Summer, 2011), Cambridge University Press .
  4. Zylinski, How, Osorio, Hanlon & Marshall, To Be Seen or to Hide: Visual Characteristics of Body Patterns for Camouflage and Communication in the Australian Giant Cuttlefish Sepia apama, American Naturalist, vol. 77 no. 5 (Spring, 2011), pp. 681-90 .
  5. Zylinski, S., D. Osorio, and A. Shohet., Edge detection and texture classification by cuttlefish, Journal of Vision, vol. 9 no. 13 (2009), pp. 1-10 (doi:10.1167/9.13.13..) [available here] .