Fishy interactive installation that allows users to measure their own degree of impulsivity.
The installation “Zebrafish Genetics”, featured at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, highlighted an interdisciplinary cooperation between the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences (SBCS) and EECS.The work, led by Principal Investigator Caroline Brennan in SBCS and Fabrizio Smeraldi of the Risk and Information Management group in EECS, is partly funded by a QM Impact project involving Pfizer International and by an EPSRC doctoral studentship. Research focusses on the exploring the genetic bases of impulsivity through behavioural assays on zebrafish. Experiments are highly automated, thanks to state-of-the-art computer vision control developed within EECS. The School of Engineering and Materials provided dedicated hardware and actuators.
For the exhibition Fabrizio and Kok Ho Huen (EECS) developed an interactive installation that allowed visitors to measure their own degree of impulsivity, according to a protocol devised by Matthew Parker in SBCS. Soon most visitors at the exhibition sported on their shirts a sticker reading “I am less impulsive than the average fish” - unless of course they had one proudly stating “I am more impulsive than a fish!”
The mark 2 version of the installation will be on the EECS stand at the QM undergraduate open day on Saturday 21 September.