Animals encounter information from different resources simultaneously, integrating input from multiple sensory systems before responding behaviorally. When different cues interact with one another, they may enhance, diminish, or have no impact on their responses. In this project, we test how the presence of chemical cues affect the perception of visual cues. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) often use both chemical cues and visual cues to communicate with shoal mates, to assess predation risk, and to locate food. For example, zebrafish rely on both olfactory cues and visual cues for kin recognition, and they frequently use both chemical and visual cues to search for and to capture prey. In zebrafish, the terminal nerve (TN) constitutes the olfacto-visual centrifugal pathway and connects the olfactory bulb with the retina, thus allowing olfactory perception also to activate visual receptors. Past studies have found that the presence of an olfactory cue can modulate visual sensitivity in zebrafish through the terminal nerve pathway. Alternatively, given that zebrafish are highly social, the presence of social chemical cues may distract individuals from responding to other visual cues, such as food and predator visual cues. Foraging and predator chemical cues, including chemical food cues and alarm cues, may also distract individuals from responding to non-essential visual cues. Here, we test whether the response to a visual cue either increases or decreases when presented in concert with alanine, an amino acid that represents the olfactory cues of zebrafish prey. We found that the presence of chemical cues did not affect whether zebrafish responded to visual cues, but that the fish took longer to respond to visual cues when chemical cues were also present. These findings suggest that different aspects of behavior could be affected by the interaction between sensory modalities. We also found that this impact of delayed response was significant only when the visual cue<br/>was weak compared to the strength of the chemical cue, suggesting that the salience of interacting cues may also have an influence on determining the outcomes of the interactions. Overall, the interactive effects of chemicals on an animal’s response to visual cues may also have wide-ranging impacts on behavior including foraging, mating, and evading predators, and the interaction of cues may affect different aspects of the same behavior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5osMYze5138

In January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of the novel SARS-CoV-2, otherwise referred to as COVID-19, to be an international pandemic. Ensuing health regulations around the world forced the cease of international traveling, reduced domestic travel, implemented mandatory stay-at-home orders and asked many to wear face masks in public areas. Students, workers, and many in the public sphere switched from in-person interactions to online platforms, operating remotely from their respective homes. The shift to virtual platforms has since greatly impacted arts programs and professions. Whereas the nature of music and art production rely upon the collaboration between people, often in the same room, the forced shift to virtual platforms created an upheaval for artists to re-imagine their work.

Though the transition from in-person to virtual collaboration seemed abrupt and unwanted, it opened up opportunities to create new projects that otherwise may not have happened. “Cross-Disciplinary Arts Collaboration on a Virtual Platform” took advantage of the ubiquitous shift to virtual collaboration of art disciplines. This project combined poetry, music, dance and visual art to create a unique piece that might not have been possible through strictly in-person collaboration. The goal of this project was to amplify the meaning and impact of music through the addition of words (poetry), movement (dance), and visuals (artwork).