Statistical Analysis of Behavioural Data: An Approach Based on Time-structured Models

by Patsy Haccou

$187.47

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Author: Patsy Haccou

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Hardcover:
ISBN 10: 0198546637
ISBN 13: 978-0198546634

This is a how-and-why-to-do-it book for students and scientists in all the behavioral sciences. It presents sophisticated statistical methods for analyzing continuous-time records of behavior, and integrates many recent developments in ethology, mathematical modeling, 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 behavior is studied is relatively short. The authors show how to analyze behavioral 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 gradual 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 behavioral science will find this book incomparably useful for planning and performing data analysis.

Review

'Even the chapters, which are marked by the authors as being mathematically difficult, can be understood when the book is carefully read ... an excellent text book for seminars which consider the analysis of behavioural data sets. My opinion is that the authors have done a good job. This book
can be recommended to students and colleagues who are interested in the analysis of time structured data.'
Jurgen Tomiuk, Abt. fur Klinische Genetik der Univ. Tubingen, Ethology Vol. 95, No. 2, 1993

`Two categories of readers may find this book particularly useful and interesting: researchers in the behavioral sciences who have some working knowledge of Markov processes and research statisticians who are eager to explore the fascinating and rapidly developing area of stochastic behavioral
processes ... a well-written guidebook for practitioners and an appetizer for research statisticians. Instructors will be surprisingly pleased by the authors' modern statisticial pedagogical viewpoint in presenting the material. All in all, Statistical Analysis of Behavioral Data ... is a great
combination: a very useful book in stochastic modeling for behavioral scientists and yet a very fascinating applications book for statisticians ... it would be a valuable addition to many institutional libraries.'
James H. Matis, Texas A and M University, Journal of the American Statistical Association, September 1994

`this is a much-needed book ... a research monograph detailing the work of the Leiden school: as such it is extremely useful and will help enormously in making their methods widely available'
Richard Sibly, University of Reading, British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology (1994)

About the Author

Patsy Haccou, Research Fellow, Institute of Theoretical Biology, Leiden University. Evert Meelis, Lecturer in Biostatics, Institute of Theoretical Biology, Leiden University.

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Experimental Psychology

Statistical Analysis of Behavioural Data: An Approach Based on Time-structured Models