Nicky Clayton facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Nicky Clayton
FRS FSB
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| Born | 22 November 1962 |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford University of St Andrews |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Comparative cognition |
| Institutions | University of Cambridge Rambert Dance Company |
| Thesis | (1987) |
Nicola Susan Clayton (born 22 November 1962) is a British psychologist. She is a professor at the University of Cambridge. There, she studies how animals and humans think. She is also a scientist who works with the Rambert Dance Company. Nicky Clayton is a co-founder of 'The Captured Thought'. This is a project that mixes art and science. She has been a member of the Royal Society since 2010.
Contents
Early Life and Learning
Nicky Clayton went to the University of Oxford. She earned a degree in zoology in 1984. After that, she got her PhD from the University of St Andrews in 1987.
Her Work
Studying Animal Minds
Professor Clayton has made big discoveries about how animals think. She also studies how children's minds grow. Her work helps us understand how memory works in the brain. It also shows how thinking skills develop.
She combines biology and psychology in her studies. This helps her find new ways to understand how smart animals are. She looks at how intelligence has grown over time. She studies not only humans but also birds from the crow family. This includes jackdaws, rooks, and jays.
Her research has changed what many people thought. For example, it was believed that only humans could remember the past. It was also thought that only humans could plan for the future. Her work shows that crows can do these things too. This has led to new ideas about how smart birds are. Scientists now think that intelligence developed separately in different groups. These groups include apes, crows, and even cephalopods (like cuttlefish).
Science and Dance
Since 2009, Professor Clayton has worked with the Rambert Dance Company. She started as a science helper and is now their scientist-in-residence. She is also a dancer herself, specializing in tango and salsa. She uses ideas from both art and science in her dance projects.
In 2009, she worked on a dance show called The Comedy of Change. This show was inspired by Charles Darwin's ideas about how living things change over time. She helped the choreographer and Artistic Director, Mark Baldwin, with scientific ideas for the dance. She has worked with him on many other shows. These include Seven For a Secret, Never To Be Told and The Strange Charm of Mother Nature.
The show Seven For a Secret, Never To Be Told was about how children think. This is another area Professor Clayton studies. She picked ideas about how children grow and behave. For example, she highlighted how important play is for kids. These ideas helped inspire the dance moves. The title of the show came from the nursery rhyme One for Sorrow. This rhyme is about how many magpies you see.
The Captured Thought
Professor Clayton also works with artist and author Clive Wilkins. He has been an Artist in Residence at the University of Cambridge since 2012. They both love thinking about "mental time travel". This means thinking about the past and planning for the future.
Because of this shared interest, they started "The Captured Thought". This is a project that combines art and science. They give talks and explore how we experience thinking. They use ideas from both science and art to look at how we see things. They also study how we think about the future and remember the past. Their goal is to understand how our memories work. They also question how much power our analysis has.
Their work has been featured in newspapers and magazines. They have given talks at universities and conferences all over the world.
Key Research Areas
Professor Clayton's research has explored many fascinating topics. Here are some examples:
- How scrub jays remember where they hid food.
- How crows think and plan for the future.
- How young children (3-5 years old) think about what they will need later.
- How animals like chimpanzees solve problems.
- How Eurasian jays hide information from other birds.
- How animals might use tricks, similar to a magician's misdirection.
- How cuttlefish remember things as they get older.
Awards and Honors
Professor Clayton has received many awards for her important work:
- 1999: Frank Beach Award from the American Psychological Association.
- 2003: Klaus Immelmann Award in Animal Behavior.
- 2010: Elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a very high honor for scientists.
- 2012: Mid-Career Award from the Experimental Psychology Society.
- 2013: Fellow of the American Ornithological Society.
- 2022: Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB) Medal.
