Submitted by Administrator on Thu, 04/12/2014 - 17:28
The University of Cambridge has been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant to investigate belief state attribution in children and jays.
Predicting how another individual will act is an important aspect of the social lives of humans and animals. Previous work within the Comparative Cognition lab has demonstrated the remarkable social understanding of corvids (members of the crow family including jays, rooks and jackdaws). For example, jays cache food so that they can eat it in the future and they will choose to hide this food out of sight of other birds that might steal it.
At their most sophisticated these predictions can be made by attributing mental states, such as beliefs and desires, to others; an ability known as Theory of Mind. However, these predictions may also be the consequence of a less sophisticated ability such as the learning of behavioural rules or the attribution of states that do not possess all the qualities of beliefs (minimal Theory of Mind). This project will develop and test novel techniques in order to differentiate between these accounts.
The team involved in the project will be led by Nicola Clayton (Head of the Comparative Cognition Lab, University of Cambridge) and includes Ian Apperly (Co-Applicant, University of Birmingham), Robert Lurz (Co-Applicant, City University New York) and Edward Legg (Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Cambridge).
The Leverhulme Trust was established by the will of William Hesketh Lever, the founder of Lever Brothers. Since 1925 the Trust has provided grants and scholarships for research and education; today it is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing over £60 million a year. For more information, visit www.leverhulme.ac.uk.
Edward W. Legg