What Makes An Animal Smart?

Date: Monday 7^th March 2016

Time: 7pm

Venue: the Victorian Bar, Tron Theatre

Speaker: Lauren Guillette

Animals perform behaviours that routinely surprise and impress us. Most of these are behaviours that we tend to think are special to humans, such as using tools. But animals can also do things we might find quite difficult, like remembering thousands of locations where food is hidden. Come to listen to Lauren Guillette talk about her research on learning and cognition in animals and then to discuss questions like: What does it mean to be smart? How do we find out if an animal is smart? And are some animals smarter than others?

Dr Lauren Guillette has been at the University of St Andrews (Royal Society Newton International Fellow and BBSRC Anniversary Future Leader Fellow) since 2013 where she is studying social learning in foraging and nest building in birds. She is interested in the causes and consequences of variation in cognitive abilities among animals. Over her career she has examined learning and cognition in a variety of animals from wild and domestic birds to antlion larvae (sit-and-wait predatory insects).

This event is being sponsored by The Royal Society (London).