Thomas Collett

Thomas Collett is a neurobiologist at the University of Sussex who currently works on visually guided navigation in ants and bumblebees as a way of understanding visual scene perception and visual learning in natural situations. In the 1980s Brian Cartwright and he pioneered a view-based approach to navigation in which guidance is accomplished by moving so as to match a current view of one's surroundings to a desired view. Previous research on visually guided behaviour includes:

(a) studies of 3-D vision in frogs and toads, examining how different depth cues interact and how depth information aids these animals cope with a variety of obstacles as they approach their prey;

(b) early microelectrode recordings of motion and feature detectors in insects;

(c) With Michael Land, the analysis of how flies track and pursue each other during courtship, so revealing some of the sophisticated mechanisms that underlie insect visuo-motor behaviour.