Comparative Cognition Lab

Comparative cognition in animals

Cognitive development

Current topics in animal cognition include:

• Mental time travel (episodic-like memory and future planning) by food-caching Western Scrub-Jays.
• Social and physical cognition in corvids (members of the crow family, which includes jackdaws, rooks and jays), from studies of alliance formation and post-conflict behaviours in rooks, and food-sharing in jackdaws, to tests of what jays and rooks understand about tools and other tests of folk physics.

Current topics in development include:

• Development of prospective cognition in young children. This work is done in collaboration with Dr James Russell who also works in the Department of Experimental Psychology.
• Development of social and physical cognition in young children.

Lab members

Lucy Cheke
Gabrielle Davidson (co-supervised by Dr Alex Thornton)
Dr Uri Grodzinski
Jolle Jolles
Ed Legg
Dr Corina Logan
Ljerka Ostojic
Dr Josh Plotnik
Dr Caroline Raby
Rachael Shaw
Dr Alex Taylor
James Thom (co-supervised by Dr Jon Simons)
Dr Alex Thornton
Allie Watanabe

Schedule

We hold weekly lab meetings during term time on Tuesdays at 4.30 pm in the Craik-Marshall seminar room. These are also attended by Prof Tony Dickinson, Prof Nick Mackintosh and Prof Nick Humphrey.