Nicola Clayton

Nicola Susan Clayton PhD, FRS, FSB, FAPS, C (born 22 November 1962[2]) is a British psychologist. She is Professor of Comparative Cognition at the University of Cambridge, Scientist in Residence at Rambert Dance Company,[3] co-founder of 'The Captured Thought' [4] [5], a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where she is Director of Studies in Psychology,[6] and a Fellow of the Royal Society since 2010.[7] Clayton was made Honorary Director of Studies and advisor to the 'China UK Development Centre'(CUDC) in 2018. She has been awarded professorships by Nanjing University, Institute of Technology, China (2018) [8], Beijing University of Language and Culture, China (2019)[9][10], and Hangzhou Diangi University, China (2019)[9][10]. Clayton was made Director of the Cambridge Centre for the Integration of Science, Technology and Culture (CCISTC)[11] in 2020.

Nicky Clayton
Born(1962-11-22)22 November 1962
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
Alma materUniversity of Oxford, University of St Andrews
Scientific career
FieldsComparative cognition
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge, Rambert Dance Company
Thesis (1987)
Website

Early life and education

Clayton graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in zoology from the University of Oxford in 1984, before gaining a PhD from the University of St Andrews in 1987.

Career

University of Cambridge

Clayton has made major contributions in the study of animal cognition as well as cognitive development in human children, with significant impact in the neurobiology of memory and overall cognitive development.[5] Her expertise in the study of comparative cognition integrates a knowledge of both biology and psychology in providing new methods of thinking about the evolution and development of intelligence in non-verbal animals and pre-verbal children. Clayton studies cognition not only in humans but also in members of the crow family (including jackdaws, rooks and jays). This work has challenged many assumptions that only humans can reminisce about the past and plan for the future, and that only humans can understand other times as well as other minds.[12] Her work has also led to a re-evaluation of the cognitive capacities of animals, specifically birds, and resulted in a theory that intelligence evolved independently in at least two groups, the apes and the crows.[13]

Rambert Dance Company

Since 2009, Clayton has worked with the Rambert Dance Company as science collaborator, then scientific adviser, and now scientist-in-residence.[14] As a dancer, specializing in tango and salsa, she draws evidence from both the arts and science in her collaborations. In 2009, Clayton experienced her first collaboration by becoming involved in a dance piece called The Comedy of Change, which was inspired by Charles Darwin's ideas of natural and sexual selection. She met the choreographer and Artistic Director of Rambert Dance Company, Mark Baldwin, and gave input about science that could inform the piece.[14] Other choreographic works inspired by science Clayton has collaborated with Baldwin on include Seven For a Secret, Never To Be Told, What Wild Ecstasy,[13] The Strange Charm of Mother Nature, The Creation, Perpetual Movement and Bold.

The piece Seven For a Secret, Never To Be Told was based on the psychology of children, an area of Clayton's research. Clayton singled out themes related to the behavioural development of children, such as the importance of play, which helped to inspire the choreography. This piece was another collaboration between Clayton and Baldwin; the title inspired by a line from the nursery rhyme One for Sorrow, which was based on a superstition associating the number of magpies one sees to prediction of one's future.[15]

The Captured Thought

Another of Clayton's collaborations is with the artist and author, Clive Wilkins, who has been Artist in Resident in the psychology department at the University of Cambridge since 2012, a position created especially for Wilkins. Their collaboration arose out of a mutual interest in mental time travel and resulted in Clayton and Wilkins co-founding "The Captured Thought~ an arts/science collaboration."[12] Their work and lectures explore the subjective experience of thinking, by drawing evidence from both science and the arts to examine perception and the nature of mental time travel, as well as the mechanisms we use to think about the future and reminisce about the past. The goal of this project is to illuminate ideas concerning memories and question the power of analysis.[16] Important aspects of The Captured Thought's work have been highlighted in articles in 'The Guardian' newspaper in 2019 [17][18] and in 'Die Zeit' magazine in 2020 [19]. The Captured Thought were invited speakers at The University of Vienna's CogSciHub[20] inauguration 2019 and India's National Brain Research Centre 16th Foundation Day. Clayton and Wilkins continue to present their work in lectures to universities and conferences across the globe~ including UK, Europe, USA, Asia, China and Australasia.

Published works
  • 1998: Episodic-like memory during cache recovery by scrub jays
  • 2001: Effects of experience and social context on prospective caching strategies in scrub jays
  • 2004: The mentality of crows. Convergent evolution of intelligence in corvids and apes
  • 2006: Food-caching western scrubjays keep track of who was watching when
  • 2007: Planning for the future by Western Scrub-Jays
  • 2009: Western scrub-jays conceal auditory information when competitors can hear but cannot see
  • 2009: Episodic future thinking in 3- to 5- year-old-children: The ability to think of what will be needed from a different point of view
  • 2009: Chimpanzees solve the trap problem when the confound of tool-use is removed
  • 2012: Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) overcome their current desires to anticipate two distinct future needs and plan for them appropriately
  • 2013: Careful cachers and prying pilferers: Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) limit auditory information available to competitors
  • 2013: Evidence suggesting that desire-state attribution may govern food sharing in Eurasian jays
  • 2014: EPS Mid Career Award Lecture. Ways of Thinking: From Crows to Children and Back Again
  • 2014: Of babies and birds: complex tool behaviours are not sufficient for the evolution of the ability to create a novel causal intervention
  • 2014: Pilfering Eurasian jays use visual and acoustic information to locate caches
  • 2014: The Evolution of Self Control
  • 2015: Thinking ahead about where something is needed: New insights about episodic foresight in preschoolers[7]
  • 2019: Tricks of the Mind. Experiencing the Impossible Current Biology. Book review [21]
  • 2019: Mind Tricks. Magic and mysticism reveal cognitive shortcuts with implications beyond entertainment[22]
  • 2019: Reflections on the Spoon Test. Neuropsychologia [23]

Awards
gollark: Yes, by about three orders of magnitude.
gollark: I mean, you just calculated krist mined per hour compared to the average US wage, which makes zero sense.
gollark: So you just... randomly decided on that?
gollark: The one krist/money transaction I heard of was a few thousand krist for a few €.
gollark: Where did you get the "2.2 krist = 1 usd" from?

References
  1. "Nicky Clayton". The Life Scientific. 22 November 2011. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  2. CLAYTON, Prof. Nicola Susan, Who's Who 2015, A & C Black, 2015; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014
  3. "Professor Nicola S. Clayton FRS FSB FAPS C Psychol". Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 30 March 2012. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  4. FRS, Professor Nicola S. Clayton (11 March 2012). "Professor Nicola S. Clayton". www.psychol.cam.ac.uk.
  5. Clayton, Nicola. "The Captured Thought".
  6. Clare College Cambridge website accessed 26 May 2014
  7. "Professor Nicola S. Clayton FRS FSB FAPS C Psychol". University of Cambridge. University of Cambridge. Retrieved 7 April 2015.
  8. "Nicky Clayton and Clive Wilkins have received Professorships from Nanjing University Institute of Technology, China". www.psychol.cam.ac.uk. 3 January 2019.
  9. Wilkins, Mr Clive (10 December 2014). "Professor Clive Wilkins". www.psychol.cam.ac.uk.
  10. Campello, Daniele (12 November 2019). "Nicky and Clive have been appointed Honorary and Visiting Professors in multiple Universities in China". www.psychol.cam.ac.uk.
  11. Campello, Daniele (12 May 2020). "The Cambridge Centre for the Integration of Science, Technology and Culture (CCISTC)". www.psychol.cam.ac.uk.
  12. "Professor Nicky Clayton, FRS". Cambridge Neuroscience. University of Cambridge. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  13. "Professor Nicola Clayton". Battle of Ideas 2014. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  14. Reisz, Matthew (15 March 2012). "Third-culture club". Times Higher Education. Times Higher Education. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  15. Gross, Michael (22 November 2011). "Dances with magpies". Current Biology. 21 (22): R905–R907. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.11.008.
  16. "The Captured Thought is off to Florida University". The Captured Thought. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  17. The Guardian. Armistead, C.(2019)The magicians trying to change the world- one card trick at a time. September 9, 2019, G2, 6-7.
  18. Campello, Daniele (10 September 2019). "Clive Wilkins and Nicky Clayton on The Guardian - "The magicians trying to change the world"". www.psychol.cam.ac.uk.
  19. ‘Das eine Tier führt, das andere folgt, es ist eine Art Tango’. Aus der serie: Stephan Kleins Wissenschaftsgespräche. Zeitmagazin nr. 18/2020 -22 April 2020
  20. "Forschungsverbund Vienna Cognitive Science Hub". cogsci.univie.ac.at.
  21. Clayton N.S. & Wilkins C.A.P. (2019) Current Biology 29(10), R349-R350
  22. Clayton N.S. & Wilkins C.A.P. (2019)Science 364, 6445.
  23. Wilkins C.A.P & Clayton N.S. Reflections on the Spoon Test. Neuropsychologia (2019)
  24. "Nicola Clayton". Royal Society. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  25. "Nicola S. Clayton, PhD, FRS, FSB, FAPS, C Psychol". Retrieved 8 April 2015.
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