As Olympians test the limits of their performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics, a University of Lethbridge animal behaviour researcher has co-authored a paper that is unlocking the way scientists can measure performance constraints — the factors that place limits on just how far and fast we can physically perform.

Dr. David Logue in ULethbridge’s Department of Psychology and co-author Dr. Tyler Bonnell recently published the paper, Skewed performance distributions as evidence of motor constraint in sports and animal displays, in Royal Society Open Science. Logue, in his Birdsong Lab, studies birds to learn about the evolution of interactive communication. From songs to mating displays, he has travelled the world studying how birds communicate with one another and what factors influence their behaviours and ultimately lead to their successe…