Edinburgh Psychology Keynote Talk

Speaker: Nicky Clayton (University of Cambridge)

Title: Ways of Thinking: From Crows To Children And Back Again

Abstract: In this lecture I will review some of the recent work on the remarkable cognitive capacities of food-caching corvids. Research on developmental cognition suggests that young children do not pass similar tests until they are at least four years of age in the case of the social cognition experiments, and eight years of age in the case of the tasks that tap into physical cognition. This developmental trajectory seems surprising~ intuitively, one might have thought that the social and planning tasks required more complex forms of cognitive process, namely Mental Time Travel and Theory of Mind. I will present our latest findings on physical cognition in children aged 4 to 11, which may provide some clues to answer this mystery. Future research aims to understand the mechanisms underlying these abilities in both children and corvids, thereby exploring similarities and differences in these different and distantly related varieties of mind.

Contact

Dr Richard Shillcock