Symposium program

Speakers

Professor Sir Patrick Bateson
Cognition and instinct

Professor Mandyam Srinivasan
Small brains, smart minds: Perception, learning and 'cognition' in honeybees

Professor Giorgio Vallortigara
The cognitive chicken: Higher mental processing in a humble brain

Dr Nathan Emery
Apes, corvids and the evolution of cognition

Professor Gisela Kaplan
Higher cognition and communication in apes and birds, with special reference to the vocal repertoire of Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen)

Professor Nicola Clayton
Memories of tomorrow: Do animals remember the past and plan for the future?

Professor Christopher Evans
Communication and cognition in birds

Professor Russell Gray
Tool manufacture, cognition and culture in New Caledonian crows

Symposium Chairs

Lesley Rogers is Professor of Neuroscience and Animal Behaviour at the University of New England in Armidale. She obtained a BSc in zoology from Adelaide University and a DPhil and a DSc from the University of Sussex in the UK. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and has served on its council. Her research on the development and evolution of brain and behaviour, with a focus on hemispheric specialisation (lateralisation), is well known and she has published over 200 scientific papers and book chapters, as well as 14 books. Her discovery of lateralisation in the brain showed that it is not a unique characteristic of humans.

Professor Ross Day is currently Adjunct Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychological Science at La Trobe University in Melbourne. He obtained a BSc in 1949 from the University of Western Australia and a PhD in 1953 from the University of Bristol in the UK. Prior to his present appointment he was for 28 years Foundation Professor of Psychology at Monash University in Melbourne. His primary research interests are in human sensory processes and perception with special reference to veridical and illusory perception of space and motion and their neural correlates. He has also worked extensively on visual perception in very early infancy, in intellectual disability and in driving and aviation.