1 00:00:00,00 --> 00:00:02,1 Nicky: My name's Nicky Clayton 2 00:00:02,34 --> 00:00:09,37 and I'm professor of comparative cognition at the University of Cambridge in the Psychology department. 3 00:00:09,97 --> 00:00:15,25 I'm also a scientist in residence at Rambert, the dance company in London. 4 00:00:15,25 --> 00:00:15,81 Speaker 2: Rambert? 5 00:00:15,81 --> 00:00:16,73 Nicky: Rambert, yeah. 6 00:00:16,73 --> 00:00:17,65 Speaker 2: What is that? 7 00:00:17,65 --> 00:00:23,11 Nicky: It's the name, r-a-m-b-e-r, it was called Ballet Rambert, originally 8 00:00:23,12 --> 00:00:26,42 and then it became Rambert Dance Company And most recently, 9 00:00:26,82 --> 00:00:35,7 they changed the name again to just Rambert because it stands as an orchestra, and it's 90 years old this year. 10 00:00:35,9 --> 00:00:37,84 We've just celebrated our 90th birthday. 11 00:00:37,84 --> 00:00:43,43 Speaker 2: Okay, really, but you're a scientist in residence at a ballet company? 12 00:00:43,43 --> 00:00:47,86 Nicky: That's correct, yes. Well, ballet and contemporary dance, yes. 13 00:00:47,86 --> 00:00:51,02 Speaker 2: Why do they need a scientist? [LAUGH] 14 00:00:51,02 --> 00:00:52,04 Speaker 2: What's science do- 15 00:00:52,04 --> 00:01:00,22 Nicky: Well, I do various things but mainly I collaborate with Mark Baldwin, who's a world famous choreographer 16 00:01:00,56 --> 00:01:02,46 and artistic director of the company. 17 00:01:02,83 --> 00:01:09,92 And we've worked on five choreographic works together, one about evolution called The Comedy of Change. 18 00:01:10,88 --> 00:01:18,05 One that was about crows and children and the power of play, called Sudden for Secret, Ever to be Told. 19 00:01:18,51 --> 00:01:22,65 One about sexual conflict, which was called What Was Ecstasy. 20 00:01:24,49 --> 00:01:26,04 So that's three of them, 21 00:01:26,04 --> 00:01:35,83 and most recent one that we’re doing which will premier shortly in July in fact called the creation based on Hayden's 22 00:01:35,83 --> 00:01:41,42 creation. It’s about the origin of life and the origin of time. It’s very movement based. 23 00:01:42,05 --> 00:01:46,48 So that's some of the sorts of things that I do with my company 24 00:01:46,48 --> 00:01:50,36 and I also work with some of our dancers on their individual choreography. 25 00:01:50,36 --> 00:01:56,29 Speaker 2: Okay, so what's, why the emphasis on the signs or the event? 26 00:01:56,29 --> 00:02:05,99 Nicky: It's the integration of the two. It's about using ideas from science to inspire new choreographic works. 27 00:02:07,08 --> 00:02:09,65 So it's quite an interesting thing to do. 28 00:02:09,81 --> 00:02:16,13 And Clive Wilkins with whom I collaborate on the captured thought and dance tango. 29 00:02:16,78 --> 00:02:23,74 We wrote a paper together with another of my colleagues, Kevin Layland on the evolution of dance, 30 00:02:23,94 --> 00:02:29,31 which was published quite recently in Current Biology. So, all the work is interrelated. 31 00:02:29,31 --> 00:02:34,09 It is about, I suppose I am a movement junkie. I love to move. 32 00:02:34,27 --> 00:02:42,06 I love to dance and my science and art is really inspired by my love of dance and my love of birds, 33 00:02:42,06 --> 00:02:47,92 cuz I always wanted to be a bird. I've always wanted to fly and I have invisible wings. 34 00:02:47,92 --> 00:02:51,15 Speaker 2: I can see them. [LAUGH] 35 00:02:51,15 --> 00:02:52,8 Nicky: Yeah. 36 00:02:52,8 --> 00:02:59,22 Speaker 2: Let me go back to your professor at Cambridge University. 37 00:03:03,95 --> 00:03:12,73 Can you tell me what this exactly is, your Department. What do you teach? 38 00:03:12,73 --> 00:03:19,98 Nicky: Well, I'm based in a department of psychology these days, although my training, initially, was in zoology. 39 00:03:20,5 --> 00:03:23,13 So I read zoology at Oxford University. 40 00:03:23,37 --> 00:03:27,51 But I've always been interested in the interface between biology 41 00:03:27,55 --> 00:03:31,94 and psychology because I'm interested in how birds think. 42 00:03:32,52 --> 00:03:36,17 So the zoological aspect of it, is because of the birds, 43 00:03:36,76 --> 00:03:40,95 and the psychological aspect of it is that I'm interested in cognition. 44 00:03:41,19 --> 00:03:46,54 I'm interested in what's it like to think without words, as well as what it's like to think with words, 45 00:03:47,1 --> 00:03:53,47 which is something I explore scientifically in terms of the ability of birds in general, 46 00:03:53,75 --> 00:04:00,86 and members of the crow family in particular. They're at cognitive abilities, their problem solving. 47 00:04:00,86 --> 00:04:12,00 Speaker 2: Really, it's racing comes from zoology? [CROSSTALK] The other part from psychology. 48 00:04:12,00 --> 00:04:12,64 Nicky: Yeah. 49 00:04:12,64 --> 00:04:18,19 Speaker 2: And you combine it with trying to find out how birds can think. 50 00:04:18,19 --> 00:04:24,29 Nicky: Well, crows in particular, because crows are extremely intelligent. They've got huge brains for their body size. 51 00:04:24,43 --> 00:04:28,44 In fact, relative to body size their brains are as large as those of chimpanzees. 52 00:04:29,05 --> 00:04:33,82 And we know that they are extremely good problem solvers. 53 00:04:34,8 --> 00:04:44,07 The kinds of things that I've been investigating are whether these birds are capable of remembering the past 54 00:04:44,08 --> 00:04:45,64 and thinking about the future. 55 00:04:46,15 --> 00:04:50,53 So in other words, can they, lIke us, mentally travel backwards 56 00:04:50,54 --> 00:05:00,86 and forwards in time to remember specific past episodes and to imagine and crucially plan for future scenarios. 57 00:05:00,86 --> 00:05:13,32 Speaker 2: Okay, let me go back to define first what, in your opinion is and then, without thinking about birth, 58 00:05:15,21 --> 00:05:17,22 what do you think is thinking? 59 00:05:17,22 --> 00:05:26,37 Nicky: I would define cognition as the ability to problem solve. 60 00:05:26,85 --> 00:05:36,68 And it involves a series of skills, but the kinds of things that I want to include would be mental time travel 61 00:05:37,77 --> 00:05:46,3 and theory of mind. These two skills are related, so mental time travel is about being able to think about other times. 62 00:05:46,3 --> 00:05:49,94 So, times other than the here, and now, hence past, and future. 63 00:05:50,44 --> 00:05:54,08 And, theory of mind is the ability to think about other minds. 64 00:05:54,08 --> 00:06:02,87 So, if I have theory of mind, then I can understand that, your perspective will be similar to mine, in some regards, 65 00:06:03,36 --> 00:06:05,28 but in other ways, it will be crucially different. 66 00:06:06,02 --> 00:06:12,6 And the idea that I could put myself in your shoes, and imagine what you're thinking would be theory of mind. 67 00:06:12,71 --> 00:06:16,31 I think they're two important thinking skills. 68 00:06:16,31 --> 00:06:24,53 Speaker 2: They're thinking skills, but when you define what is thinking, what is thinking? 69 00:06:24,53 --> 00:06:27,2 Nicky: Well, as I've said, I think it's problem solving. 70 00:06:27,2 --> 00:06:30,48 Speaker 2: It's problem solving, and so what is a thought? 71 00:06:30,48 --> 00:06:35,83 Nicky: So, a thought is the ability to project the mind. 72 00:06:36,45 --> 00:06:42,5 So the problem with just defining it as problem solving is that I could say one problem I've got here is I'm thirsty. 73 00:06:43,14 --> 00:06:45,41 I want to pick up this cup to drink the water. 74 00:06:46,21 --> 00:06:53,34 Now, you could say that the ability to hold the cup and do this allows me to solve the problem of being thirsty. 75 00:06:53,9 --> 00:06:55,39 Well, that's a physical task. 76 00:06:55,89 --> 00:07:03,49 But the point about thinking is that you can play multiple scenarios in the mind without actually executing the task 77 00:07:03,49 --> 00:07:07,98 first. So I might have never encountered this kind of object before. 78 00:07:08,12 --> 00:07:16,83 Be able to think through in the mind's eye without taking any action what is the minimal amount of things I need to do 79 00:07:17,04 --> 00:07:20,93 in order to drink the water. So, for example with the birds. 80 00:07:21,36 --> 00:07:24,57 We have a water test that involves something similar to this. 81 00:07:24,68 --> 00:07:30,46 We call it the Aesop's Fable because it's based on the Aesop's Fable of The Thirsty Crow and The Pitcher. 82 00:07:31,26 --> 00:07:35,55 And in the fable of course, the crow encounters a pitcher of water. 83 00:07:35,91 --> 00:07:40,9 The water is too low, and so it's not within beak reach. 84 00:07:41,00 --> 00:07:43,58 And what the crow does is, she finds some stones 85 00:07:43,8 --> 00:07:49,22 and puts the stone into the pitcher to raise the water level to a level at which she can drink. 86 00:07:50,2 --> 00:07:55,58 So we can do something similar with our birds. We can present them with a tube that's got some water in. 87 00:07:55,83 --> 00:08:00,14 The water level is too low for the birds just to be able to go and reach the water. 88 00:08:00,46 --> 00:08:07,1 In fact, in our case, we don't make If the bird's thirsty we float a little tasty worm on top of the water. 89 00:08:07,43 --> 00:08:13,35 Waxworms and wax moth larvae, as they're properly called as a zoologist, 90 00:08:13,35 --> 00:08:18,4 are the Belgian truffles of the Corvidae world. They really, really love these. 91 00:08:18,55 --> 00:08:21,63 And so they're then highly motivated to get these worms. 92 00:08:21,83 --> 00:08:24,94 And of course the worms are hard to reach because the water level's too low. 93 00:08:25,86 --> 00:08:33,06 And the birds spontaneously put stones into the water level to raise the water. 94 00:08:33,97 --> 00:08:38,29 We can then use a task like that to, basic problem solving task, to ask, well, 95 00:08:38,61 --> 00:08:42,75 how are the birds thinking through this problem? How can they solve these things? 96 00:08:42,89 --> 00:08:48,43 So for example, we could have a series of tubes, only one of which contains water. 97 00:08:49,01 --> 00:08:55,61 Maybe in another condition, the worm is floating in air, thanks to a bit of [INAUDIBLE] rather than real magic. 98 00:08:56,07 --> 00:08:59,75 And in another one, the worm is resting on a solid, say sand, 99 00:09:00,32 --> 00:09:07,26 and we can ask whether the birds understand that there's no point putting stones into a tube full of air 100 00:09:07,7 --> 00:09:11,97 or a tube full of sand. That's not gonna change the level of the substrate. 101 00:09:12,25 --> 00:09:14,8 It's only going to work with the liquid, with the water. 102 00:09:15,3 --> 00:09:19,86 Similarly, we can give them the choice of different kinds of objects to put into the tube 103 00:09:20,05 --> 00:09:25,95 and ask whether they understand that it's heavy ones that sink, that are actually going to displace the water. 104 00:09:26,26 --> 00:09:32,71 And therefore allow the water level to rise to a level at which they can then reach the worm. 105 00:09:33,07 --> 00:09:38,98 Whereas if they put hollow ones in or ones that just float, that's not going to displace the water. 106 00:09:39,35 --> 00:09:44,17 So we can do various tests like that to see how they're thinking through the problem. 107 00:09:44,81 --> 00:09:51,53 And that's a way of trying to get it, how they can solve these problems and what they understand about the tasks. 108 00:09:51,53 --> 00:09:55,4 Speaker 2: Yeah, but now you are talking about the Corvidae family. 109 00:09:55,4 --> 00:10:00,67 Nicky: I'm talking about how the jays and rooks and [CROSSTALK] children. 110 00:10:00,67 --> 00:10:03,33 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll talk about that later. 111 00:10:03,33 --> 00:10:08,9 Nicky: Yeah but that's as an example. You asked me. There isn't a set definition up here. 112 00:10:09,00 --> 00:10:15,00 I can't give you full words that nails down what thinking is, because if I try and do that, 113 00:10:15,4 --> 00:10:17,7 there's going to be too many caveats to it. 114 00:10:17,7 --> 00:10:21,95 Speaker 2: Yeah, I understand. That's why I wanted you to think out loud, what it could possibly be. 115 00:10:21,95 --> 00:10:27,75 Nicky: So that's why I think problem solving, but one in which you can have sort of internal trial and error 116 00:10:27,76 --> 00:10:29,85 and think through a problem is key. 117 00:10:29,85 --> 00:10:32,6 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's interesting for me. 118 00:10:32,87 --> 00:10:36,67 First I would like to try to find out well, what's the area we are talking about? 119 00:10:37,15 --> 00:10:45,34 And after that I would like to talk with you about how do you do your research with crows and with children? 120 00:10:45,34 --> 00:10:48,04 Nicky: Yeah, so I think one difference you see- 121 00:10:48,04 --> 00:10:55,4 Speaker 2: Not everything about thinking and cognition is very clear to me because our audience is well educated, 122 00:10:55,68 --> 00:11:05,27 but they are not scientists. So that's why we're talking a little bit about what are we talking about. 123 00:11:05,27 --> 00:11:09,29 Nicky: Yes, well, the reason I gave problem solving is that 124 00:11:09,52 --> 00:11:12,91 but there are simple ways of problem solving that you wouldn't call thinking. 125 00:11:13,5 --> 00:11:16,6 Would be, you could imagine you just do something through trial and error. 126 00:11:16,79 --> 00:11:22,7 So you have no idea what this is, it's a novel object. And you push it this way, and that doesn't work. 127 00:11:22,7 --> 00:11:24,99 And you do that, and that doesn't work. 128 00:11:24,99 --> 00:11:30,65 And eventually, through exploring a number of things, you figure out that the best way to get the cup 129 00:11:30,66 --> 00:11:36,23 and drink is to do that action. And then they're after you, just to more of the same. 130 00:11:36,59 --> 00:11:42,88 Well, that's called learning by trial and error or instrumental conditioning is what the psychologists would call that. 131 00:11:43,33 --> 00:11:51,61 And most people wouldn't want to call any problem solving that simply occurred through learning by trial and error 132 00:11:51,61 --> 00:11:58,17 or instrumental conditioning cognition. They would want to say that cognition requires more than that. 133 00:11:58,34 --> 00:12:05,66 It's the ability to actually think through a problem without necessarily having to learn about the outcomes first. 134 00:12:05,98 --> 00:12:10,21 So that's why I've used that example as a distinction. 135 00:12:10,52 --> 00:12:16,52 So what you're usually looking for is to train your animal, your human subject, 136 00:12:16,86 --> 00:12:18,78 on a particular task until they're doing it. 137 00:12:19,43 --> 00:12:25,45 And then you use some kind of transfer test, in which really what you're tapping into is what have they understood, 138 00:12:26,3 --> 00:12:31,5 and how they do, simply more than just simple learning by rote. 139 00:12:31,95 --> 00:12:37,28 Can they abstract some sort of general rule that tells you that yes, they're actually thinking about it? 140 00:12:37,37 --> 00:12:40,07 They're just not automatically doing it. 141 00:12:40,07 --> 00:12:47,77 Speaker 2: Why are you so interested in this subject about how this works in your mind? 142 00:12:47,77 --> 00:12:54,83 Nicky: Well, I suppose I'm fascinated by thinking, per se. 143 00:12:55,3 --> 00:13:06,17 And at one level, I'm really interested in the different kinds of thought processes that go on 144 00:13:06,69 --> 00:13:11,13 and the extent to which they rely on words or don't rely on words. 145 00:13:11,92 --> 00:13:19,13 So I say words rather than language because, of course, in humans we have language. 146 00:13:20,13 --> 00:13:23,57 And sometimes we think without using words. 147 00:13:23,79 --> 00:13:29,82 But I wouldn't want to say that that's without language because it's not like you take bits of the brain that are 148 00:13:29,83 --> 00:13:34,18 responsible for language. And scraping them out of the brain and put on the side and carry on. 149 00:13:35,76 --> 00:13:42,41 All your linguistic skills contribute to all your thought processes, with and without words. 150 00:13:42,57 --> 00:13:50,58 But the whole idea that we might be able to get some to which words enrich our thoughts, 151 00:13:50,86 --> 00:13:58,44 but perhaps even more intriguingly the extent to which they can constrain our thoughts, I think is a fascinating area. 152 00:13:58,44 --> 00:14:04,35 Speaker 2: You meant, you expressed thinking in words? 153 00:14:04,35 --> 00:14:05,36 Nicky: Thinking without words. 154 00:14:05,36 --> 00:14:06,97 Speaker 2: Without words. 155 00:14:06,97 --> 00:14:07,62 Nicky: Yeah. 156 00:14:07,62 --> 00:14:09,15 Speaker 2: So what kinds of- 157 00:14:09,15 --> 00:14:10,32 Nicky: Well- 158 00:14:10,32 --> 00:14:11,03 Speaker 2: Ways of thinking are- 159 00:14:11,03 --> 00:14:20,9 Nicky: Contemporary dance, visual arts, are both examples of thinking without words or thinking largely without words. 160 00:14:21,14 --> 00:14:25,11 When you see a beautiful painting, it doesn't usually have words on it. 161 00:14:25,87 --> 00:14:30,88 And even if it does have a word on it, like the famous this is not a pipe, 162 00:14:31,98 --> 00:14:35,69 even then the point is so much more than just the words, right? 163 00:14:35,84 --> 00:14:46,56 And similarly in contemporary times, you see a beautiful series of movements, but words are really secondary. 164 00:14:47,42 --> 00:14:55,62 Yes, it's got a title, and yes, there might be a small description in the program, but the performance is so much more, 165 00:14:56,16 --> 00:14:59,98 or the original magic effect. That is also largely without words. 166 00:15:00,18 --> 00:15:04,93 I mean, the patter that goes with the effect is just a small part of the act. 167 00:15:04,96 --> 00:15:11,46 The bit that everybody goes aah is when something unexpected happens, 168 00:15:11,8 --> 00:15:16,54 when you realize that you can't possibly have seen what you thought you saw. 169 00:15:16,54 --> 00:15:25,77 And you must have not seen what really happened. So I'm interested in those juxtapositions. 170 00:15:25,77 --> 00:15:33,56 Speaker 2: A beautiful painting, you mean, the artist had a thought and he tried to express it in colors and- 171 00:15:33,56 --> 00:15:42,96 Nicky: Yes, yes, and the way in which you then wonder what the artist actually saw, what they actually thought, 172 00:15:43,47 --> 00:15:46,49 why they chose to represent it in that particular way. 173 00:15:46,49 --> 00:15:47,49 Speaker 2: Yeah. 174 00:15:47,49 --> 00:15:57,05 Nicky: And even with words, I mean, I think there's an interesting difference between scientific writing 175 00:15:57,78 --> 00:15:59,9 and literally artistic writing. 176 00:16:00,01 --> 00:16:04,43 Because in scientific writing You want to make everything as unambiguous as possible, 177 00:16:04,66 --> 00:16:08,94 because the whole point of a scientific paper is that, strictly speaking, 178 00:16:09,39 --> 00:16:12,44 anybody should be able to read the method section of the paper. 179 00:16:13,3 --> 00:16:19,17 And if they have the right skills and facilities, they should be able to replicate the findings. 180 00:16:19,17 --> 00:16:26,7 So, in a scientific paper, you want to make everything as unambiguous and clear as possible. 181 00:16:27,05 --> 00:16:33,4 But very often in literary writing, you want to make it ambiguous cuz you want layers to it. 182 00:16:33,72 --> 00:16:43,23 You want the words not to be self-explanatory, but to generate new thoughts. I think that is an interesting contrast. 183 00:16:43,5 --> 00:16:48,3 So, in a way, I think in really good literature, 184 00:16:49,22 --> 00:16:58,58 the words are almost being used in the way notes are used by a composer to create a beautiful story. 185 00:16:58,93 --> 00:17:07,66 To build rich layers of atmosphere, much of which is largely wordless, right? 186 00:17:07,66 --> 00:17:15,35 I mean, you can have labels for emotions, but there's so much more to love, or joy, or sorrow, 187 00:17:15,35 --> 00:17:18,13 than there is to just the label of it. 188 00:17:19,57 --> 00:17:27,75 In the same way as when you see a beautiful piece of art, you hear a goodish piece of music, all these feelings 189 00:17:27,79 --> 00:17:36,14 and thoughts swell up inside you, but the words are only secondary, right? 190 00:17:37,15 --> 00:17:44,86 There's a subjective experience going on inside the mind of the viewer, or listener, or both. 191 00:17:44,86 --> 00:17:47,65 Speaker 2: And it's a thought, you think? 192 00:17:47,65 --> 00:17:54,05 Is it a thought if you see a beautiful painting, or a beautiful dance, or a beautiful- Yes, I think they're thoughts. 193 00:17:54,05 --> 00:17:59,09 Nicky: Heavily charged emotional thoughts often, but- Conscious thoughts? 194 00:18:00,48 --> 00:18:03,76 I think they canbe conscious, and I think they can be unconscious, right? 195 00:18:03,79 --> 00:18:09,24 You can have that unconscious feeling of just, isn't this wonderful, 196 00:18:09,97 --> 00:18:13,53 and then you can actually have real conscious things. 197 00:18:13,68 --> 00:18:19,87 So, when you were talking earlier about the timing of the story telling, 198 00:18:20,31 --> 00:18:28,83 if some sort of dramatic music comes at the wrong time and the experience, you're suddenly very conscious of it, right? 199 00:18:29,01 --> 00:18:36,34 All of a sudden, skeptical thoughts come into your head where you think, mm, that's not right, or I don't believe that. 200 00:18:36,92 --> 00:18:44,21 Or you see a bit of a film sequence and it's out of sync, and you go, they stuffed up there, didn't they? 201 00:18:44,59 --> 00:18:50,74 And all of a sudden, those things that perhaps were beforehand just sorta punches, you were enjoying it 202 00:18:50,75 --> 00:18:58,61 but not really questioning your thoughts, all of a sudden, it's like a switch, and suddenly you think, hang on a minute. 203 00:18:58,94 --> 00:19:07,95 Or you're listening to, I don't know, political politicians speaking, and all of a sudden you think, you shifty nettle, 204 00:19:08,35 --> 00:19:10,43 I don't believe you for one minute. 205 00:19:10,43 --> 00:19:22,00 Or I can listen to the dulcet tones of Sir David Attenborough, and I find myself just believing every word he says. 206 00:19:22,23 --> 00:19:28,18 Because he has that kind of a voice where if he said, Nicki, darling, please jump off a cliff right now 207 00:19:28,19 --> 00:19:34,49 and commit suicide, I'd be halfway there before I was even realizing it, because he's got such a persuasive voice. 208 00:19:35,47 --> 00:19:42,52 So you have that constant flip-flopping, I think, between the conscious experience and the unconscious one. 209 00:19:42,52 --> 00:19:46,11 I mean, a classic case to me is when Clive and I are dancing tango. 210 00:19:46,91 --> 00:19:56,4 If you were to say to me afterwards, what steps did you dance, or show me that move again, I wouldn't remember, 211 00:19:56,89 --> 00:20:04,83 because when we're dancing we're in flow. Which is connected together, moving as one to the music. 212 00:20:04,83 --> 00:20:13,97 So I'm not thinking, he wants me to do a backward upturn now, or a gown show-up. My brain doesn't work that way. 213 00:20:14,52 --> 00:20:23,53 I'm just subconsciously just connecting with Clive and just moving together as one, and synchronating to the music. 214 00:20:23,91 --> 00:20:27,01 I'm not thinking about the moves. 215 00:20:29,85 --> 00:20:36,23 And obviously, that's particularly the case in something like tango, where it's such a connected and improvised dance. 216 00:20:36,65 --> 00:20:45,69 But even in choreographic sequences, often you will hear the rehearsal director saying to one of the dancers, 217 00:20:45,97 --> 00:20:47,49 don't over think it. 218 00:20:48,08 --> 00:20:56,42 Because if you put to much conscious thought, conscious cognition into the process, you will ruin the fluidity 219 00:20:56,42 --> 00:20:57,85 and the naturalness of the music. 220 00:20:57,99 --> 00:21:04,65 So, it was always an interesting juxtaposition there between the conscious and the unconscious thoughts. 221 00:21:04,65 --> 00:21:13,72 Speaker 2: That's very, very interesting, and maybe you can talk about that a little bit later, 222 00:21:14,74 --> 00:21:24,31 because I would like to know, because I just need to know, how do you do your research about thinking? 223 00:21:25,66 --> 00:21:28,61 Because, our viewer doesn't know anything. 224 00:21:28,61 --> 00:21:39,06 So, now, in this part, I would like to feel the surprise that your researched crows. Do you understand? 225 00:21:39,06 --> 00:21:48,11 Nicky: So you mean, you'd like me to talk about an experiment that was surprising? 226 00:21:48,11 --> 00:21:56,22 Speaker 2: Not that, but for our viewers, you researched our mind, about thinking, 227 00:21:57,38 --> 00:21:59,46 but our viewers don't know that you researched crows. 228 00:21:59,46 --> 00:22:01,13 Nicky: Crows, okay. 229 00:22:01,13 --> 00:22:05,42 Speaker 2: So, well, I'll ask you how do you do your research? 230 00:22:05,42 --> 00:22:07,91 Nicky: You want me to start with I work with crows. 231 00:22:07,91 --> 00:22:11,53 Speaker 2: Yeah, for example, yeah, yeah, yeah. 232 00:22:11,53 --> 00:22:12,43 Nicky: Okay. 233 00:22:12,43 --> 00:22:23,31 Nicky: So, I suppose one way to define thoughts would be that I'm interested in studying the mental lives. 234 00:22:24,33 --> 00:22:33,7 And that it's mental movements, I suppose, it's what's going on in the mind that I'm interested in. 235 00:22:34,53 --> 00:22:46,32 And I work mainly with humans and with crows. And you might think, well, why crows? 236 00:22:46,32 --> 00:22:52,83 Surely, monkeys I could understand, but why a crow? Well, crows are extremely intelligent. 237 00:22:53,98 --> 00:22:58,99 They have huge brains to the body size. They're as big as chimpanzees. 238 00:23:00,23 --> 00:23:05,69 In fact, my husband is calling them feathered apes when it comes to their mental abilities, 239 00:23:05,96 --> 00:23:20,49 because they're so cognitively impressive. And they're very observant and very good problem solvers. 240 00:23:22,09 --> 00:23:31,8 So the way in which we do the experiments are to give them a series of problem-solving puzzles, if you like, 241 00:23:32,69 --> 00:23:42,66 with a view to trying to systematically vary certain parameters, in order to try to get a handle on they're thinking, 242 00:23:43,1 --> 00:23:44,37 how they're solving a particular- 243 00:23:44,37 --> 00:23:45,47 Speaker 2: And do crows think? 244 00:23:45,47 --> 00:23:46,81 Nicky: Definitely. 245 00:23:46,81 --> 00:23:49,61 Speaker 2: How do you know? How do you know that crows think? 246 00:23:49,61 --> 00:23:56,32 Nicky: Well, because we can show that they're so good at solving these problems. 247 00:23:57,33 --> 00:24:02,68 They can think about the past and the future, for example. We've been able to show in. 248 00:24:03,45 --> 00:24:05,9 One experiment that they are capable. 249 00:24:05,9 --> 00:24:06,71 Speaker 2: Do they have memories? 250 00:24:06,71 --> 00:24:09,34 Nicky: They have fantastic memories, yeah. 251 00:24:09,88 --> 00:24:18,32 So, your Clark's nutcracker, which is an American Corvid that lives Yosemite high up in the mountains, 252 00:24:19,09 --> 00:24:23,6 hides on average about 30,000 seeds a year. 253 00:24:24,55 --> 00:24:30,11 And can remember the location of these 30,000 caches 254 00:24:31,73 --> 00:24:37,39 and people have tested their memories over a periods of nine months and found no evidence of forgetting. 255 00:24:38,22 --> 00:24:44,94 So, they have really remarkable memories of where they have hidden their stashes. 256 00:24:44,94 --> 00:24:46,93 Speaker 2: They remember 30,000. 257 00:24:46,93 --> 00:24:47,28 Nicky: Yeah. 258 00:24:47,28 --> 00:24:47,76 Speaker 2: It's false. 259 00:24:47,76 --> 00:24:48,11 Nicky: Yeah. 260 00:24:48,11 --> 00:24:48,59 Speaker 2: Where they. 261 00:24:48,59 --> 00:24:48,95 Nicky: Yeah. 262 00:24:48,95 --> 00:24:49,54 Speaker 2: Put their seeds. 263 00:24:49,54 --> 00:24:55,9 Nicky: Yeah, so they've got fantastic memories, and caching, the ability to hide food, 264 00:24:56,36 --> 00:25:03,84 is a very interesting behavior from looking at aspects of cognition Because you can ask it how good are there memories 265 00:25:03,88 --> 00:25:08,17 and you can show that if you remove the seeds, so they couldn't possibly be using smell, 266 00:25:08,68 --> 00:25:10,79 they still go back to those particular places. 267 00:25:11,64 --> 00:25:15,2 We've been able to show that they don't just remember where the food is hidden. 268 00:25:15,55 --> 00:25:22,39 They can remember which kinds of food were hidden where and how long ago, so they can remember what happened where 269 00:25:22,4 --> 00:25:23,24 and when. 270 00:25:24,63 --> 00:25:31,58 We've been able to show that they can even remember which particular individuals were watching when they hid the food, 271 00:25:31,91 --> 00:25:35,92 and then they'll come back later and move those foods to new hiding places. 272 00:25:36,52 --> 00:25:40,94 Which the potential themes, by definition, don't know about the new hiding places. 273 00:25:41,58 --> 00:25:45,77 We've shown that when it comes to social awareness, 274 00:25:46,29 --> 00:25:52,45 they go to great lengths to protect their hidden food from being stolen by others. 275 00:25:52,69 --> 00:26:03,19 So for example, we've been able to show that if other birds are watching, not only do they move them to new places 276 00:26:03,19 --> 00:26:04,54 when the other birds have come back. 277 00:26:05,2 --> 00:26:12,27 But they will also specifically hide the food in shady spots rather then well lit places, 278 00:26:12,56 --> 00:26:19,96 which is much harder for the onlooker to see. And in fact the way we discovered that was we had a BBC1 film crew come. 279 00:26:20,49 --> 00:26:23,76 They were filming for a series called Child of Our Time. 280 00:26:24,91 --> 00:26:34,22 And the cameraman got very frustrated because Sweetie Pie, who was a very tame, beautiful scrub jay would wait 281 00:26:34,23 --> 00:26:39,7 and only had food every time the cameraman had to take a toilet break. 282 00:26:41,06 --> 00:26:47,78 And eventually I had to say to the cameraman look away and I'll tell you when to start recording. 283 00:26:48,83 --> 00:26:50,51 And that was the only way we could film her. 284 00:26:50,72 --> 00:26:58,79 And then we noticed that she was only hiding in the places in the arena that weren't well lit. 285 00:26:59,14 --> 00:27:05,7 And that gave us the idea to actually test, was she specifically choosing shady places when observers were present? 286 00:27:05,95 --> 00:27:14,22 And we found that, sure enough, if another bird or a human was looking, she would selectively cache in the shady spots. 287 00:27:15,17 --> 00:27:17,05 And so would all the other birds we tested. 288 00:27:17,51 --> 00:27:22,37 Whereas, if she was caching in private, she was happy to cache in sunny and shady spots. 289 00:27:22,84 --> 00:27:30,18 We've even shown that these kind of cache protection tactics that the birds do, so moving the caches, 290 00:27:30,72 --> 00:27:37,31 hiding in shady spots and so on and so forth. That they're only done by experienced birds. 291 00:27:37,54 --> 00:27:41,05 Naive birds who've had no experience with stealing caches don't do it. 292 00:27:41,13 --> 00:27:49,15 So it's not just a hard wired instinctive ability. More evidence that it's theory of mind. 293 00:27:49,51 --> 00:27:53,98 Once you've had the experience of stealing yourself you can put yourselves in another's shoes 294 00:27:53,99 --> 00:27:58,7 and go well if I was that bird I would be watching where those caches were. 295 00:27:58,74 --> 00:28:02,22 And I'd come back and steal them so I better move them to new places. 296 00:28:02,68 --> 00:28:08,29 But they only engage in those tactics when they themselves have been thieves. It's really quite impressive. 297 00:28:08,29 --> 00:28:15,22 Speaker 2: But that sounds very interesting and you convinced me of those crows being very smart, 298 00:28:16,01 --> 00:28:22,98 or of capable of thinking, of solving problems. What are you interested in? 299 00:28:23,95 --> 00:28:34,33 In how crows record family things or do you, in the end, want to find out how we think? 300 00:28:34,33 --> 00:28:36,18 Nicky: Both. Both. 301 00:28:36,6 --> 00:28:42,62 So, I would argue in the same way as if you want to know how a computer works, 302 00:28:43,32 --> 00:28:45,54 you wouldn't want to only use an Apple Mac. 303 00:28:45,85 --> 00:28:53,00 You'd want to also look at how a PC works and see the similarities and differences in your types of computer. 304 00:28:53,48 --> 00:28:56,92 In order to have a better understanding of how computers work. 305 00:28:57,53 --> 00:29:01,91 In the same way I'm gonna to have a better understanding, I think, 306 00:29:02,7 --> 00:29:10,61 about how our brains work if I look at similarities and differences between crows and people. 307 00:29:10,95 --> 00:29:19,68 Because crows are very distantly related to us, we share a common ancestor with them over 300 million years ago. 308 00:29:19,68 --> 00:29:27,55 Well, we as humans, we as mammals, it depends how you want to look at it, but birds 309 00:29:27,55 --> 00:29:30,9 and mammals had a common ancestor over 300 million years ago. 310 00:29:31,02 --> 00:29:35,31 So there's been a long time in our evolutionary history in which we've been diverging, 311 00:29:35,69 --> 00:29:42,94 we've been going down different paths. And our brains and those of other mammals are layered. 312 00:29:43,14 --> 00:29:49,52 So our cortex has six layers to it, whereas the bird brain doesn't have layers, it's nucleated. 313 00:29:49,92 --> 00:29:55,86 So the analogy might be that a bird brain on a mammalian brain or a human brain, 314 00:29:55,86 --> 00:30:01,26 they're both full of these nerve cells that are so important for thinking processes. 315 00:30:01,77 --> 00:30:08,18 And my analogy would be, if I imagine cakes, the bird brain is like a fruit cake, 316 00:30:08,61 --> 00:30:12,9 and the mammalian brain is like a six-layered Austrian chocolate cake, the Sachertorte. 317 00:30:13,46 --> 00:30:20,06 So they're both made of cake mix, but the structure or the layout, the architecture, is actually quite different. 318 00:30:20,52 --> 00:30:29,06 So that then raises interesting questions about whether those different neuro-architectures might impose different 319 00:30:29,07 --> 00:30:30,97 constraints on our thinking pattern. 320 00:30:30,97 --> 00:30:38,08 Speaker 2: Well, what did you learn from the crows, so far? 321 00:30:38,08 --> 00:30:45,92 Nicky: Well, many things. So firstly, we've learnt that they have really sophisticated cognitive abilities. 322 00:30:46,17 --> 00:30:50,47 So there are a number of things that were thought to be unique to human beings. 323 00:30:50,71 --> 00:30:57,38 So at one time it was said that tool manufacture is uniquely human and then they discovered that well, no, 324 00:30:57,38 --> 00:30:57,95 chimps use tools. 325 00:30:58,53 --> 00:31:07,22 We've now found that all the crows that we've tested, all the different species, will happily use tools 326 00:31:07,23 --> 00:31:11,05 and even make them even though they don't necessarily use tools in the wild. 327 00:31:11,05 --> 00:31:21,73 So New Caledonian crows rely heavily on tools to find food in the wild but mocks and jays don't but they will use 328 00:31:21,74 --> 00:31:26,83 and make tools in the lab if they're given a task that requires one. 329 00:31:26,83 --> 00:31:30,7 Speaker 2: Also you can stimulate the thinking process. 330 00:31:30,7 --> 00:31:35,65 Nicky: Yes, so normally a rook has a very long bill, 331 00:31:36,06 --> 00:31:41,7 and the kinds of foods that they eat are usually things like earthworms in the soil. 332 00:31:41,9 --> 00:31:47,38 So for that you don't need a tool, you just need to insert your beak deep into the soil. 333 00:31:47,72 --> 00:31:54,76 And they have bare patches around their faces, which are probably an adaptation for being able to dig the earthworms 334 00:31:54,76 --> 00:31:58,77 and the other grubs that are in the soil. But for that you don't need a tool. 335 00:31:58,77 --> 00:32:05,86 But, if you give them a task in the Lab where they will need a tool in order to reach the food. 336 00:32:06,29 --> 00:32:09,36 They will happily use tools, make tools. 337 00:32:09,36 --> 00:32:14,29 Speaker 2: Can we see them? Do you have any proof or evidence? 338 00:32:14,29 --> 00:32:20,6 Nicky: I can show you some video footage of spontaneously taking a piece of wire 339 00:32:21,04 --> 00:32:25,4 and bending it into a hook to retrieve a bucket that's out of it's reach. 340 00:32:25,4 --> 00:32:32,83 And I can show you rooks and jays using stones and other objects to raise the water level to get worms. 341 00:32:32,83 --> 00:32:36,12 Speaker 2: The Belgian Truffle? 342 00:32:36,12 --> 00:32:40,24 Nicky: The Belgian Truffle. So we've got a lot of video footage 343 00:32:40,24 --> 00:32:40,55 Speaker 2: Great. 344 00:32:40,55 --> 00:32:45,19 Nicky: We can show you all that tomorrow and you can have copies of anything you'd like. 345 00:32:45,19 --> 00:32:50,5 Speaker 2: Great. So how do we as humans, our species, benefit from what you learned from crows? 346 00:32:50,5 --> 00:32:54,75 Nicky: How do we benefit? 347 00:32:57,21 --> 00:33:07,96 Well, I think people are fascinated by animals and a lot of people would love to go far away 348 00:33:08,15 --> 00:33:16,44 and see chimpanzees in the wild, making tools and interacting. And we all love the footage. 349 00:33:17,83 --> 00:33:26,24 The whole idea that these feathered apes are actually in the back garden is pretty stunning, I think, 350 00:33:26,38 --> 00:33:30,61 in that you could actually watch them solving problems in action. 351 00:33:31,33 --> 00:33:37,45 And it's not just tool use, that was one thing that was viewed as uniquely human. We now know it's not. 352 00:33:38,24 --> 00:33:40,22 And why is that interesting? 353 00:33:40,52 --> 00:33:45,22 Well, it's one of a number of things that we thought was, perhaps, 354 00:33:45,23 --> 00:33:51,75 responsible for how we've come to get our sophisticated cognitive abilities. 355 00:33:52,33 --> 00:33:57,00 But, if these birds have it too then we are not unique. 356 00:33:57,24 --> 00:34:02,2 So either that means that a lot more animals out there have it than we thought 357 00:34:02,64 --> 00:34:05,36 or it means that only a select few have it 358 00:34:05,72 --> 00:34:12,91 and in which case probably these abilities have evolved in very different animals with very different brains, 359 00:34:13,36 --> 00:34:19,7 but probably for a similar reason. That raises a question of what is that similar reason. 360 00:34:19,89 --> 00:34:29,26 Is it because of needing to be innovative problem solvers and therefore to be able to make tours if we need them, 361 00:34:30,06 --> 00:34:33,22 or is it because of complex social lives? 362 00:34:33,45 --> 00:34:46,55 The fact that we form long term relationships with others that we are very good at being able to detect who's honest, 363 00:34:46,81 --> 00:34:47,59 and who's cheating. 364 00:34:48,33 --> 00:34:57,55 We're able to form alliances and political maneuvers to strengthen our own chance of overcoming our enemies. 365 00:34:58,05 --> 00:34:59,99 Politics is a good example of that. 366 00:35:00,45 --> 00:35:08,53 We know that the chimpanzees form complex relationships, alliances and can do these kind of primate politics. 367 00:35:09,17 --> 00:35:16,5 More recently we discovered that these corvins, these members of the crow family, like the rooks and the ravens 368 00:35:16,51 --> 00:35:24,24 and the jays can do that, form these complex social relationships too. So I think it raises- 369 00:35:24,24 --> 00:35:30,09 Speaker 2: Like can you give examples? The social relations were you prepared to use? 370 00:35:30,09 --> 00:35:31,41 Can they fall in love, for example? 371 00:35:31,41 --> 00:35:37,44 Nicky: Well, they pair for life, that's for sure. I've been very worried when one night. 372 00:35:37,45 --> 00:35:44,89 I remember when two of our jackdaws, you'll like this because the jackdaws were named after ethologists. 373 00:35:45,39 --> 00:35:49,49 So we have Niko Tinbergen [LAUGH] and Konrad Lorenz. 374 00:35:50,57 --> 00:35:57,66 And when Konrad Lorenz died, the jackdaw Conrad Lorenz, as opposed to the human Konrad Lorenz, 375 00:35:57,66 --> 00:36:05,8 Niko was absolutely devastated and just stopped eating and hardly moved for about a week. 376 00:36:05,95 --> 00:36:08,69 And I was really worried we were going to lose him. 377 00:36:09,55 --> 00:36:18,8 Eventually he was all right, but it looked to me like emotional devastation, 378 00:36:18,87 --> 00:36:24,94 course it's very difficult to know exactly how you would say whether another bird was in love 379 00:36:24,98 --> 00:36:31,5 but certainly in terms of their behavior it was consistent with being in love and then being bereft, 380 00:36:31,5 --> 00:36:40,3 but they usually pair for life. So they form these very stable, long term, monogamous relationships. 381 00:36:40,3 --> 00:36:44,39 Speaker 2: Is it also an evolutionary process that they pair for life? 382 00:36:44,39 --> 00:36:51,66 Nicky: Well certainly in things like jackdraws it's very important if you're to defend a nest cavity 383 00:36:52,03 --> 00:36:59,52 and have offspring, it takes two. And a lone jackdraw is right down the bottom of the pecking order. 384 00:36:59,75 --> 00:37:06,61 So you don't want to just find a mate, produce young, and then go off and find another one when you need them. 385 00:37:06,61 --> 00:37:09,49 You really need to stay as a couple. 386 00:37:10,3 --> 00:37:16,15 We also know in the jays, for example, that during the breeding season the male will feed the female. 387 00:37:17,1 --> 00:37:20,32 This courtship feeding is very common in a number of birds. 388 00:37:21,06 --> 00:37:26,19 It's just that in the jays they do it very delicately which means that we can actually see, 389 00:37:26,47 --> 00:37:31,78 and I can show you footage of this, what the male feeds the female. 390 00:37:32,58 --> 00:37:38,21 So we can actually see the items being physically transferred from his beak to her beak. 391 00:37:38,9 --> 00:37:43,23 So we can count what kinds of food and how many, so we can quantify the food sharing. 392 00:37:43,64 --> 00:37:54,44 And what we've been able to show is is series of experiments is that the male jay is able to feed the female what she 393 00:37:54,57 --> 00:37:57,86 wants even if that's quite different to what he wants. 394 00:37:58,15 --> 00:38:05,24 So, for example, if I've just seen you eat a whole box of chocolates, Alex, 395 00:38:05,56 --> 00:38:07,33 and then you've maybe left a couple at the end. 396 00:38:07,43 --> 00:38:12,21 So I'm pretty sure you're full of chocolate, even though I like chocolate, 397 00:38:12,78 --> 00:38:18,6 I could infer that you're done with the chocolates now, you're probably going to want something different to eat. 398 00:38:18,76 --> 00:38:21,22 Well the jays can also do that. 399 00:38:21,33 --> 00:38:27,91 They can ignore their own desire of what they want in order to cater for what their female wants. 400 00:38:27,91 --> 00:38:41,76 Speaker 2: Can you say that thinking is a evolutionary process, so if it develops in the crow's mind or crow's brain, 401 00:38:46,84 --> 00:38:55,65 can you say that our own thinking is developing as well? Can you develop thinking? 402 00:38:55,65 --> 00:39:00,7 Nicky: Yes, I mean, you know, young children are not very good at certain aspects of thinking. 403 00:39:01,03 --> 00:39:02,12 So for example, 404 00:39:02,66 --> 00:39:09,59 children before the age of four don't understand what a lie is because they can't understand that your point of view 405 00:39:09,59 --> 00:39:11,45 could be different from my point of view. 406 00:39:12,21 --> 00:39:18,75 So there's a famous task called the Sally-Anne task which we'll demonstrate for you tomorrow that illustrates this, 407 00:39:18,75 --> 00:39:20,48 where you ask a little child. 408 00:39:21,21 --> 00:39:28,3 Say there's one dolly that has seen an item being hidden in one box and then that dolly goes out of the room. 409 00:39:28,74 --> 00:39:37,56 And then the food is then moved from that box to a new box, the little child won't understand that Sally, 410 00:39:37,56 --> 00:39:44,25 who'd left the room, doesn't know that the toy was moved here because all Sally saw was it go in the first box. 411 00:39:44,67 --> 00:39:52,5 The little child, well she, Sally knows just what she knows, which is that the toy is now in this box not in that box. 412 00:39:53,12 --> 00:39:59,66 And similarly, young children don't have a concept of yesterday and tomorrow. 413 00:40:00,01 --> 00:40:04,67 Neither of those things, the ability to think about other minds. And to think about other times. 414 00:40:05,72 --> 00:40:09,59 Those two things don't develop until children reach about the age of four. 415 00:40:09,59 --> 00:40:17,39 Speaker 2: But I mean of course in people's lives, thinking develops. 416 00:40:17,79 --> 00:40:26,7 But I mean for our species does the thinking develop, say in one out of 1000 years, or in a million years, 417 00:40:27,89 --> 00:40:31,43 do we have developed another kind of thinking? [INAUDIBLE] 418 00:40:31,43 --> 00:40:37,2 Nicky: Well, that's an interesting question, isn't it? The extent to which our thinking changes. 419 00:40:38,73 --> 00:40:49,65 At one level, you could sort of say our brains haven't really changed much since beginning of humans, if you like. 420 00:40:49,81 --> 00:40:57,51 And so there's probably a sense in which we're not any more intelligent now than we were. 421 00:40:57,64 --> 00:41:00,36 Well I'm going to give you two alternative arguments. 422 00:41:00,36 --> 00:41:09,16 Okay, so the one case would be our brains haven't changed, so probably at least since our ability to read and write, 423 00:41:09,65 --> 00:41:16,16 our thinking skills haven't improved. We're probably no more or less intelligent than we were then. 424 00:41:17,03 --> 00:41:26,28 The other line of argument would be to say, well I don't know whether our intelligence, per se, has changed. 425 00:41:26,8 --> 00:41:30,37 But our thinking patterns may well have done. 426 00:41:30,37 --> 00:41:37,3 The whole notion that we live in a digital age, what has that done to our brains? 427 00:41:37,53 --> 00:41:42,24 So most people, I think don't tend to remember telephone numbers any more. 428 00:41:42,4 --> 00:41:46,92 You just pick up your mobile phone and hit your search list and press the button. 429 00:41:49,86 --> 00:41:52,57 We have computers and iPhones 430 00:41:53,35 --> 00:42:02,55 and iPads that allow us to record information in ways which I think is fundamentally changing how we think. 431 00:42:02,74 --> 00:42:09,46 I'll give you just one example in an area that I happen to know about, which of course is dance, 432 00:42:09,86 --> 00:42:22,26 and in both contemporary dance and in ballet, when you develop a new choreographic work. 433 00:42:23,52 --> 00:42:32,3 In the olden days, everything used to be written down through particular notation, [INAUDIBLE] notation. 434 00:42:33,11 --> 00:42:40,18 And of course there was a bit of ambiguity when you come to reinterpret the story. 435 00:42:40,27 --> 00:42:46,88 If you go back and look at the original [INAUDIBLE] and you want to make a new production, 436 00:42:46,88 --> 00:42:56,04 as did in 2012,and you want to stick as closely to what you think was meant by the original terminology. 437 00:42:56,89 --> 00:43:02,34 It's all a series of notations, which describe the basic moods, but, obviously, 438 00:43:02,35 --> 00:43:09,38 there's going to be some ambiguity in what those things mean, in the same way as if you were a film maker. 439 00:43:10,2 --> 00:43:16,01 And you want to develop a new version of a particular series based on book. 440 00:43:16,7 --> 00:43:22,24 Of course there's the information in the book, but then there's the layers on top of that that need interpreting. 441 00:43:23,6 --> 00:43:29,34 But of course these days in dance, what most choreographers do, Is to record it. 442 00:43:29,34 --> 00:43:41,37 Now, you don't have that same level of interpretation, you just watch the video footage of the piece. 443 00:43:41,61 --> 00:43:45,98 So that's a way in which our thinking probably has changed. 444 00:43:46,56 --> 00:43:48,83 There are a lot of people, it's not my area, 445 00:43:48,83 --> 00:43:54,12 but there are a lot of people obviously studying things like how Twitter and Facebook 446 00:43:54,16 --> 00:44:04,04 and those forms of social media are affecting the way in which our social interactions work. So I- 447 00:44:04,04 --> 00:44:09,49 Speaker 2: But can you say that if our thinking develops 448 00:44:09,53 --> 00:44:12,85 and I mean in the future we will develop another way of thinking- 449 00:44:12,85 --> 00:44:16,41 Nicky: Well that's really exciting question, I think. 450 00:44:16,41 --> 00:44:17,09 Speaker 2: What is? 451 00:44:17,09 --> 00:44:25,75 Nicky: Well the question of whether by understanding more about how we think now, we could find new ways of thinking. 452 00:44:26,44 --> 00:44:34,25 So I think that's the golden nugget that It's very interesting to think with words and without words. 453 00:44:34,25 --> 00:44:43,48 The work that I do with [INAUDIBLE] one of our big goals and big picture, blue skies question, is whether 454 00:44:43,48 --> 00:44:46,73 and to what extent it's possible to think beyond words. 455 00:44:47,36 --> 00:44:53,04 And that's why we're so interested in looking at the constraints on our cognition, 456 00:44:53,8 --> 00:44:58,39 the patterns of thinking to see if that would generate new ways of thinking. 457 00:44:58,72 --> 00:45:06,56 I guess it's one of the main goals of art, is to examine ideas. 458 00:45:06,56 --> 00:45:15,51 So, I think one of the things we're interested in looking at constraints on our memories 459 00:45:15,52 --> 00:45:20,5 and our perceptions as being the first baby steps in that direction, cuz that's a [INAUDIBLE] question. 460 00:45:21,08 --> 00:45:25,69 We're not going to solve that question, but we might get a step closer to it. 461 00:45:26,33 --> 00:45:37,29 So it's trying to understand why is it we miss so much of what happened and we miss so much of what we see. 462 00:45:37,29 --> 00:45:38,47 Speaker 2: Is it? 463 00:45:38,47 --> 00:45:41,83 Nicky: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. 464 00:45:41,83 --> 00:45:42,75 Speaker 2: Do we miss a lot? 465 00:45:42,75 --> 00:45:43,7 Nicky: Yeah. 466 00:45:43,7 --> 00:45:45,93 Speaker 2: Can you explain that? 467 00:45:45,93 --> 00:45:50,95 Nicky: Well if we didn't, all magicians would be out of business wouldn't they? 468 00:45:52,24 --> 00:46:00,31 Because the magic effect capitalizes on the fact that there are a number of things that go on in a sequence that makes 469 00:46:03,13 --> 00:46:11,41 if we saw every move that the magician made in executing the fact, it wouldn't work as a magic trick. 470 00:46:11,41 --> 00:46:16,55 We'd go, thanks a lot. Why are you wasting my time? 471 00:46:16,83 --> 00:46:25,05 It's the fact that we know jolly well that that can't literally have vanished in thin air, and yet our eyes 472 00:46:25,67 --> 00:46:30,3 and our visual cortex, our mind, is telling us that that's precisely what happened. 473 00:46:30,3 --> 00:46:35,1 Speaker 2: So, it's a challenge between tricks or magic and how we think. 474 00:46:35,1 --> 00:46:36,74 Nicky: Well, that's just one example. 475 00:46:37,59 --> 00:46:43,31 Another example would be with memory, so that would be say tea lead should be catch, 476 00:46:43,31 --> 00:46:46,31 kind of an interacting because it is probably more powerful than two of us. 477 00:46:46,39 --> 00:46:52,03 But there's a phrase that we really like to use which is you do not remember what happened, 478 00:46:52,79 --> 00:47:00,34 what you remember becomes what happened. So the whole idea that actually, and we all know this. 479 00:47:00,34 --> 00:47:01,12 Speaker 2: Can you say that again? 480 00:47:01,12 --> 00:47:08,61 Nicky: Yeah, you don't remember what happened, what you remember becomes what happened. 481 00:47:08,61 --> 00:47:12,91 So, I think many people have had this experience. 482 00:47:12,91 --> 00:47:21,91 You've not seen a friend for years and you reminisce about, and if you went to it, it was a very memorable event, 483 00:47:22,28 --> 00:47:24,74 and it was a treasured memory for both of you. 484 00:47:25,35 --> 00:47:33,87 And you start comparing notes about the event, and you realize that your memories of the event don't match totally. 485 00:47:33,87 --> 00:47:35,21 Speaker 2: That's interesting. 486 00:47:35,21 --> 00:47:45,73 Nicky: You have a memory that she was wearing a beautiful pair of red shoes and she says, no, no, they were black. 487 00:47:47,00 --> 00:47:54,44 And she has a memory that you had a glass of champagne and you said no, no, I was drinking, I was driving, 488 00:47:54,69 --> 00:47:59,88 I was just drinking coconut water. And you're like well how can this be? How can our memories. 489 00:48:00,62 --> 00:48:08,06 And these are good friends, you know, we thought similarly. I'm not sharing this with an alien from another planet. 490 00:48:08,06 --> 00:48:11,88 His memory's just rubbish, or her memory's just inaccurate. 491 00:48:12,31 --> 00:48:15,88 You suddenly realize that there's a whole mismatch, it's how false memories work. 492 00:48:15,88 --> 00:48:33,76 Speaker 2: Can you compare a thought with something unique like your eyes or your face or your. 493 00:48:34,93 --> 00:48:37,47 Is it unique the way you think? 494 00:48:37,47 --> 00:48:41,12 Nicky: Well I think memories are unique, yes. 495 00:48:41,8 --> 00:48:48,86 I think it's very interesting that we often think of memory as being an active repository of the past. But it isn't. 496 00:48:49,65 --> 00:48:54,29 Our memories are extremely subjective and they're seen through our own eyes. 497 00:48:54,57 --> 00:49:02,82 So in our work with the captured thought, Clive and I talked about memories being the door to identity, 498 00:49:03,3 --> 00:49:05,99 because our memories shape who we are. 499 00:49:06,6 --> 00:49:14,53 And identities, our individuality shapes the way in which we choose to record 500 00:49:14,92 --> 00:49:27,42 and remember those instances that then become our memories. And that's why we don't remember what actually happened. 501 00:49:28,21 --> 00:49:35,41 We have a subjective take on it, we remember those bits that are of interest and relevance to us. 502 00:49:36,01 --> 00:49:43,73 And quite often we can discover that there are aspects of our memory that didn't even happen at all 503 00:49:43,77 --> 00:49:45,57 or happened in quite a different way. 504 00:49:46,54 --> 00:49:53,38 We can do that by sharing our memories with others and discovering there are bits of my memory 505 00:49:53,39 --> 00:49:56,36 and your memory of the same event that don't match. 506 00:49:56,36 --> 00:50:02,19 There is a lot of research that is been done on the notion of false memory by Elizabeth Lofsters, 507 00:50:02,46 --> 00:50:03,83 where she's found that, 508 00:50:04,35 --> 00:50:15,24 the way which you phrase the question can bias people to remember things in quite a different way than the way it 509 00:50:15,28 --> 00:50:20,89 actually happened. So you might show somebody a footage of an event. 510 00:50:20,89 --> 00:50:26,42 Let's say it's a car going at 20 miles an hour or 40 miles an hour, 511 00:50:27,69 --> 00:50:34,33 but actually the way in which you phrase the question afterwards that the car smashed into the lorry. 512 00:50:34,97 --> 00:50:43,81 Or the car bumped into the lorry will have a much more dramatic impact on the memory that that person has of the event 513 00:50:43,81 --> 00:50:48,16 than the actual speed that the car was going. False memory- 514 00:50:48,16 --> 00:50:49,56 Speaker 2: Memories, yeah. 515 00:50:49,56 --> 00:50:50,96 Nicky: Yes, memory. 516 00:50:50,96 --> 00:51:01,68 Speaker 2: Yeah, does it mean that the way we remember. You said that determines our identity. 517 00:51:01,68 --> 00:51:03,04 Nicky: That's right. 518 00:51:03,04 --> 00:51:06,76 Speaker 2: So it's very personal the way you think. 519 00:51:06,76 --> 00:51:12,41 Nicky: Yeah, yeah. Memories are subjective experiences. 520 00:51:12,41 --> 00:51:17,21 Speaker 2: So there are no two memories alike from different persons. 521 00:51:17,21 --> 00:51:21,45 Nicky: Well I think that they're all different. 522 00:51:21,6 --> 00:51:29,41 Even if it's with a loved one with whom you're very close and feel that you think in the same way. 523 00:51:29,8 --> 00:51:36,32 Your memories are still going to be slightly different because they're seen through a different set of eyes. 524 00:51:36,93 --> 00:51:44,23 And they're being filtered through a different mind, because everybody's experiences are different from one another. 525 00:51:44,83 --> 00:51:49,69 So I think even two identical twins would still have slightly different memories. 526 00:51:49,69 --> 00:51:56,33 Speaker 2: Well, that's interesting. I never looked at it like that. 527 00:51:56,81 --> 00:52:02,54 I thought, well, if you have been at the same occasion, then you must remember same things. 528 00:52:02,54 --> 00:52:06,27 Nicky: Yeah, yeah but, we put our own subjective stamp on it. 529 00:52:06,8 --> 00:52:10,58 And, that's, I think, where integrating science 530 00:52:10,58 --> 00:52:18,3 and the arts just to do these kinds of questions becomes so important and, so insightful. 531 00:52:18,71 --> 00:52:22,4 Because, it's easy, as a scientist just to think very objectively, 532 00:52:22,82 --> 00:52:30,94 and go these are the things that have been remembered. Here's a list of things that happened in this event. 533 00:52:31,16 --> 00:52:36,65 It happened in this particular room at this time of day on a particular date. 534 00:52:37,04 --> 00:52:44,37 She was wearing this, he was wearing that. But that's not how our memories work. They're not just the series of labels. 535 00:52:44,37 --> 00:52:45,54 Speaker 2: And a series of facts. 536 00:52:45,54 --> 00:52:46,94 Nicky: A series of facts. 537 00:52:47,24 --> 00:52:55,85 It's about the emotional experience and that's the difference perhaps between, 538 00:52:56,64 --> 00:52:59,53 that's one aspect of why I would call it a thought. 539 00:53:01,96 --> 00:53:11,76 A series of facts or labels could be extremely objective but your thoughts are personal and they're subjective 540 00:53:12,09 --> 00:53:16,01 and sometimes they can change depending on how you're feeling on a particular day. 541 00:53:16,17 --> 00:53:22,3 So you may revisit a memory and in consequence of which you actually change it. 542 00:53:22,95 --> 00:53:26,89 You don't just revisit it and go down the list of things that happened 543 00:53:27,24 --> 00:53:32,33 but all of a sudden because of something else you've discovered in the interim 544 00:53:32,43 --> 00:53:39,11 or because of a different mood that you're in or well-being, you reshape it. 545 00:53:39,11 --> 00:53:48,99 Speaker 2: So can you say that the factual memory or the fact you remember are objective? 546 00:53:49,84 --> 00:54:03,91 But because who you are and because there's time that it gets filtered through your mind, gets subjective. 547 00:54:04,64 --> 00:54:08,59 And then that's how a thought is created? 548 00:54:08,59 --> 00:54:12,02 Nicky: Well sort of. I think it's a bit more complex than that. 549 00:54:12,02 --> 00:54:13,15 Speaker 2: More complex? 550 00:54:13,15 --> 00:54:22,2 Nicky: Yeah, well I think that there are factual labels that we remember with precision. 551 00:54:22,2 --> 00:54:26,03 London's the capital of England. No idea how I know that information. 552 00:54:26,32 --> 00:54:32,07 I don't have a memory of how I learned the information. But it's just something I know. And that's not going to change. 553 00:54:32,39 --> 00:54:40,5 I'm not going to revisit my knowledge that the fact that London is the capital of England, that's not going to change. 554 00:54:41,15 --> 00:54:49,71 But much of our memories are not purely factually based. They have all these other components to them. 555 00:54:50,3 --> 00:54:57,35 And the difference there I think arises A, because we've each got a unique pair of eyes 556 00:54:57,36 --> 00:55:02,5 and a unique mind that's filtering all those things as you've said. 557 00:55:03,14 --> 00:55:10,55 But I think it's also because we're selective in our attention. So we also don't see everything that's going on. 558 00:55:11,07 --> 00:55:15,77 And, therefore, for another reason why we might have different memories of the event, 559 00:55:16,09 --> 00:55:22,27 quite aside from with our different eyes, and different minds, is that, my viewpoint of what I see, 560 00:55:22,69 --> 00:55:25,93 is different to your viewpoint of what you see. 561 00:55:26,13 --> 00:55:32,96 So, we can both be looking at the bird, and I know that when you're looking at the bird, 562 00:55:32,96 --> 00:55:36,26 there's stuff behind me that you're going to see. 563 00:55:36,44 --> 00:55:40,97 And similarly you know that when I'm looking at the bird, I can see Clive, 564 00:55:41,41 --> 00:55:45,93 and I can see the background wall over there, which is not something that you can see at the moment, 565 00:55:46,13 --> 00:55:48,17 because you're looking at the bird, and you're looking at me. 566 00:55:48,84 --> 00:55:55,7 So, that's the selective attention difference, as well as a filtering difference. So, that's what I meant. 567 00:55:55,7 --> 00:55:56,4 Does that make sense? 568 00:55:56,4 --> 00:55:58,13 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I understand. 569 00:55:58,59 --> 00:56:17,71 Surely When you try to research crowds or children, how hard is it to, try to, understand alien brains? 570 00:56:17,71 --> 00:56:19,18 Nicky: Yes well it's. 571 00:56:19,18 --> 00:56:21,22 Speaker 2: Is it alien? 572 00:56:21,22 --> 00:56:25,7 Nicky: Well, I suppose it depends on your point of view. 573 00:56:25,91 --> 00:56:32,54 I've spent so many years trying to think about what its like to be a bird that, for me, it's not very alien at all. 574 00:56:33,64 --> 00:56:35,47 But at another level, of course, it's alien. 575 00:56:35,64 --> 00:56:44,67 Because however hard I try to imagine what it's like to be a crow, I'm not a crow and I never will be sadly. 576 00:56:45,63 --> 00:56:52,63 And however much I think about how children might be thinking it's a long time, sadly, since I was a child. 577 00:56:53,38 --> 00:56:58,73 And even when I was a child, I wasn't the same as the children I'm investigating. 578 00:56:59,13 --> 00:57:05,01 Because we've all these individual, subjective differences we've been talking about. 579 00:57:05,5 --> 00:57:12,64 So, all you can do scientifically, I think, is to present various kinds of problem 580 00:57:13,93 --> 00:57:21,46 and ask how the subjects be them crows or children or adult humans are solving the task. 581 00:57:21,74 --> 00:57:22,88 That's what you're trying to do. 582 00:57:22,88 --> 00:57:28,24 You're trying to look at what the constraints on the thinking are, what the milestones are, 583 00:57:28,83 --> 00:57:39,62 and how much individual differences there are in what those milestones are both within children and within the crows. 584 00:57:39,62 --> 00:57:42,95 Speaker 2: What exactly are you looking for? 585 00:57:42,95 --> 00:57:46,51 Nicky: I don't know what you mean by that. 586 00:57:46,51 --> 00:57:58,21 Speaker 2: Well, somehow you feel the need to research this, find out how thinking works 587 00:57:59,44 --> 00:58:08,36 and somehow try to find a kind of secret, cuz we don't know and you want to find out. 588 00:58:08,36 --> 00:58:21,73 Nicky: That's right. I'm interested in knowing what the constraints are on our thinking processes. And thinking about- 589 00:58:21,73 --> 00:58:25,84 Speaker 2: But is there a reason why you do this? 590 00:58:25,84 --> 00:58:34,83 Nicky: Well, I've always wanted to know what it's like to think like a bird. 591 00:58:35,03 --> 00:58:46,99 That's for sure, but I'm also interested in knowing whether there are new ways of thinking that we are not aware of. 592 00:58:47,54 --> 00:58:57,95 But by understanding better what some of these constraints are on our thinking processes that might give us clues into 593 00:58:57,96 --> 00:59:04,57 what these new ways of thinking might be. And, that's where the work that I do with Clive on the couch of thought. 594 00:59:04,89 --> 00:59:09,85 That's where that is so critical because by bringing in these different perspectives 595 00:59:10,22 --> 00:59:14,3 and trying to understand more about what those fundamental features are, 596 00:59:15,79 --> 00:59:22,51 that might help us better understand how we could improve our thinking skills 597 00:59:22,52 --> 00:59:26,9 or thinking new ways that we're not aware of at the moment. 598 00:59:26,9 --> 00:59:32,61 Speaker 2: Are you able to think in different ways? 599 00:59:32,61 --> 00:59:37,48 Nicky: Yes, I think so. I mean, I think- 600 00:59:37,48 --> 00:59:39,98 Speaker 2: So you can think in words? 601 00:59:39,98 --> 00:59:46,38 Nicky: I think most of us can think without words as well. 602 00:59:46,61 --> 00:59:53,49 As I said to you before, when Clive and I were dancing tango together I am not. 603 00:59:53,49 --> 01:00:01,71 Speaker 2: But, I try to understand because if I think what I probably thinking works 604 01:00:01,71 --> 01:00:12,62 but I never had a thought about it. So, I try to be aware of the ways I can think. 605 01:00:12,62 --> 01:00:13,76 Nicky: Okay, well. 606 01:00:13,76 --> 01:00:15,07 Speaker 2: Our viewers can think. 607 01:00:15,07 --> 01:00:24,98 Nicky: Yeah, well, let me try to think of an example then of something more simple. Do you like wine? 608 01:00:24,98 --> 01:00:25,98 Speaker 2: Mm-hm. 609 01:00:25,98 --> 01:00:31,55 Nicky: Imagine I've just poured you a glass of wine. You take a sip of it. 610 01:00:32,35 --> 01:00:37,04 It's really nice, it's the nicest wine you can ever remember tasting. 611 01:00:37,04 --> 01:00:39,49 If you have this gorgeous experience, 612 01:00:40,48 --> 01:00:50,34 words aren't really going to describe for you that experience of the taste of that exquisite wine.. 613 01:00:48,5 --> 01:00:54,24 We use artificial words [INAUDIBLE] We say this one's got lots of cherries and black currant 614 01:00:54,29 --> 01:01:02,00 but it's a glass of wine and it's made from grape juice. There aren't any cherries or blackcurrants really in there. 615 01:01:02,00 --> 01:01:11,22 There are only labels that we're trying to attach to these things to share our experiences of this thing that's really 616 01:01:11,26 --> 01:01:21,14 an experience. It's not and the words are only a rough approximation of the way of sharing the experiences. 617 01:01:22,1 --> 01:01:25,01 So that's the kind of thing that I suppose I mean. 618 01:01:25,01 --> 01:01:31,71 And somehow just putting words on it in the same way as with the tango. 619 01:01:32,05 --> 01:01:37,93 Just saying well Clive led me into a backward arch sort of thing. 620 01:01:39,51 --> 01:01:46,18 It doesn't describe the exquisite experience of dancing tango. 621 01:01:46,4 --> 01:01:54,31 It’s just a label for whether I've put my feet forward or backwards, but it doesn't really capture. 622 01:01:55,88 --> 01:01:59,1 It captures the tiniest little aspect of that. 623 01:01:59,1 --> 01:02:02,46 Speaker 2: So, words fall short. 624 01:02:02,46 --> 01:02:04,74 Nicky: Words fall short, yeah. 625 01:02:04,74 --> 01:02:06,6 Speaker 2: For thinking. 626 01:02:06,6 --> 01:02:07,39 Nicky: For thinking. 627 01:02:07,39 --> 01:02:12,59 Speaker 2: I never looked at it like that. 628 01:02:12,59 --> 01:02:25,43 Speaker 2: Is it possible not to think? 629 01:02:25,43 --> 01:02:42,19 Nicky: Yes, when you're dead. [LAUGH] I think it's pretty impossible not to think when you're alive though. 630 01:02:43,55 --> 01:02:46,49 Whether you're aware of the sorts is another matter. 631 01:02:47,12 --> 01:02:55,95 So, there are very interesting cases of people who don't necessarily have conscious access to their thoughts. 632 01:03:00,89 --> 01:03:07,13 Classic case of that would be an amnesic with severe memory loss who doesn't have access to. 633 01:03:07,54 --> 01:03:10,92 They've witnessed the event, but somehow the events haven't been, 634 01:03:10,92 --> 01:03:20,13 they don't have conscious access to what happened at all, or patients with blind sight who can see 635 01:03:20,13 --> 01:03:23,29 but they're not aware that they can see. 636 01:03:23,55 --> 01:03:30,51 So, if you ask them did you see that, they say no, no, I haven't seen anything, I'm blind. 637 01:03:31,02 --> 01:03:34,8 But then if you say just guess, they're highly accurate. 638 01:03:34,8 --> 01:03:40,88 So their eyes have seen it but their brain hasn't registered the information that they're actually seeing it. 639 01:03:40,88 --> 01:03:53,99 Speaker 2: Have you ever considered the thought that when you die, that the only thing that survives are your thoughts? 640 01:03:53,99 --> 01:03:54,99 Nicky: No. 641 01:03:54,99 --> 01:04:04,16 Speaker 2: To come up with it, because you say well you stop thinking when you're dead, 642 01:04:04,31 --> 01:04:07,22 but maybe then only your body dies. 643 01:04:07,22 --> 01:04:09,46 Speaker 2: Do you understand what I mean? 644 01:04:09,46 --> 01:04:11,62 Nicky: Yeah, but where would those thoughts go? 645 01:04:11,62 --> 01:04:16,39 Speaker 2: I don't know. [LAUGH] 646 01:04:16,39 --> 01:04:21,6 Speaker 2: I'm trying to think out loud because just- 647 01:04:21,6 --> 01:04:21,95 Nicky: Yeah. 648 01:04:21,95 --> 01:04:28,96 Speaker 2: Maybe that would be interesting because it's hard not to think. 649 01:04:28,96 --> 01:04:35,3 Speaker 3: The thoughts do carry on in actual fact, because they carried on within culture and within society, 650 01:04:35,3 --> 01:04:39,4 aren't they? [CROSSTALK] Music by Beethoven for example. 651 01:04:39,4 --> 01:04:45,00 Speaker 2: It's a bit hard to, if you answer the questions and we cannot film you, you understand? [CROSSTALK] 652 01:04:45,00 --> 01:04:46,77 Speaker 2: I'm just adding something to your question. 653 01:04:46,77 --> 01:04:48,02 Nicky: Yeah. [CROSSTALK] 654 01:04:48,02 --> 01:04:51,25 Speaker 2: That's why I didn't listen too well. 655 01:04:51,25 --> 01:04:57,31 Speaker 3: Maybe you can- I was only prompting you to ask the next question, 656 01:04:57,31 --> 01:05:03,91 which was that the thoughts of one person don't necessarily die when they die, 657 01:05:04,24 --> 01:05:07,83 if those ideas are culturally relevant- [CROSSTALK] transferred to their 658 01:05:07,83 --> 01:05:08,83 Speaker 2: Okay. 659 01:05:08,83 --> 01:05:13,25 Nicky: Thank you, Donald, it's good, yeah. 660 01:05:13,25 --> 01:05:16,44 Speaker 2: That's a good, so, I suppose that's. [INAUDIBLE] 661 01:05:16,44 --> 01:05:23,68 Nicky: I suppose that's where memory as a shared experience comes in. That although the- 662 01:05:23,68 --> 01:05:26,81 Speaker 2: So, where does it come in? 663 01:05:26,81 --> 01:05:30,62 Nicky: Memory as a shared experience comes in. 664 01:05:31,03 --> 01:05:37,71 The whole idea is that although your thoughts and your memories are individual, they're personal and subjective to you, 665 01:05:38,16 --> 01:05:40,62 you can nonetheless share them with others. 666 01:05:41,37 --> 01:05:47,66 And in multiple ways, right, you can share them by discussing with one another, like we're doing here. 667 01:05:48,22 --> 01:05:56,61 You can share them by creating something exquisite, like a Beethoven symphony, 668 01:05:57,54 --> 01:06:03,06 that lives on long after Beethoven himself. 669 01:06:04,23 --> 01:06:10,77 Or a beautiful piece of literature that the author dies, but nonetheless, 670 01:06:11,42 --> 01:06:19,48 all the thoughts as represented in the novel remain. So in all those ways their thoughts can live on. 671 01:06:20,5 --> 01:06:25,12 Although of course, there's a sense in which they live on and a sense in which they die. 672 01:06:25,34 --> 01:06:31,5 Because the subjective experience of the originator of the thought, those thoughts have died. 673 01:06:32,04 --> 01:06:40,35 But the shared experience of the thoughts, in the way in which those thoughts interpreted by others, live on. 674 01:06:41,7 --> 01:06:45,9 And I suppose that's what history does, isn't it? You have these ideas that are recorded. 675 01:06:46,93 --> 01:06:56,73 But actually as others revisit the history, just as a memory is changed when it's revisited, so is history, 676 01:06:57,18 --> 01:07:04,74 so are the thoughts. So there's a level at which they live on, but they don't, they are changed. 677 01:07:04,74 --> 01:07:14,06 Speaker 2: But they also get richer somehow, because now we know this music and this music and this music, 678 01:07:15,11 --> 01:07:22,78 and still we manage to make new music which is beautiful. 679 01:07:22,78 --> 01:07:28,61 Nicky: Yeah, yeah, and the way in which it's interpreted will change, because of the new technologies, 680 01:07:28,99 --> 01:07:30,87 because of the new experiences. 681 01:07:30,87 --> 01:07:31,87 Speaker 2: Yeah. 682 01:07:31,87 --> 01:07:35,62 Nicky: So, in a way these thoughts 683 01:07:35,63 --> 01:07:47,14 and these memories are much more than just this little snippet of factual accurate information about the past. 684 01:07:47,44 --> 01:07:55,21 They infuse and purveyed our history and our culture. 685 01:07:55,21 --> 01:07:56,31 Speaker 2: Good and bad. 686 01:07:56,31 --> 01:07:59,93 Nicky: Good and bad, and our evolution, if you like, as a species. 687 01:07:59,93 --> 01:08:05,72 Speaker 2: So why do you want to fly? [LAUGH] 688 01:08:05,72 --> 01:08:17,79 Nicky: I don't know how to put that into words really. I've always been, 689 01:08:17,79 --> 01:08:23,93 Nicky: Fascinated by what it's like to be at the, 690 01:08:24,45 --> 01:08:33,72 I've always been fascinated with being able to move in a three dimensional world instead of being stuck on terra firma. 691 01:08:33,72 --> 01:08:49,25 Nicky: It's just, it feels like it's a fundamental feature of me. And yet, somehow I have difficulty verbalizing it. 692 01:08:49,59 --> 01:08:56,41 Perhaps, because the kind of subjective experiences and thoughts associated with wanting to fly 693 01:08:57,08 --> 01:09:04,03 and wanting to be a bird are largely wordless. 694 01:09:04,03 --> 01:09:11,73 Speaker 2: So what is it, is it onwards? Is it onward? 695 01:09:11,73 --> 01:09:17,92 Nicky: Thoughts, we're just thoughts, yeah. 696 01:09:17,92 --> 01:09:27,87 Speaker 2: But somehow, there has to be original view as a child thinking, I would like to fly. 697 01:09:27,87 --> 01:09:31,29 Nicky: I suppose it's the freedom, isn't it? 698 01:09:31,29 --> 01:09:41,18 The whole idea of being able to explore the world from up above, to be in the sky and look down and see more 699 01:09:41,81 --> 01:09:42,75 and see further. 700 01:09:42,75 --> 01:09:52,74 Nicky: And just see that you could have a totally different perspective on how the world looks. 701 01:09:52,74 --> 01:09:54,57 Speaker 2: You still have this wish? 702 01:09:54,57 --> 01:09:57,07 Nicky: Yeah, yeah, yeah, very much so. 703 01:09:57,07 --> 01:10:07,82 Nicky: But somehow I didn't have words that really do it justice. 704 01:10:07,82 --> 01:10:11,42 Speaker 2: Is this a wish you have all your life? 705 01:10:11,42 --> 01:10:13,75 Nicky: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 706 01:10:13,75 --> 01:10:24,11 Speaker 2: And, how do you keep this alive? But do you keep these alive, or do you need this idea to keep on going? 707 01:10:24,11 --> 01:10:28,25 Nicky: [LAUGH] I don't think about it like that, it's just part of me. 708 01:10:28,25 --> 01:10:37,47 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I don't think of flying like a bird. So, there's something inside you, which, 709 01:10:37,47 --> 01:10:45,7 Nicky: Well I suppose we all have our spirituality, don't we? 710 01:10:45,78 --> 01:10:51,49 We all have those things that we identify as being sort of core features of ourselves. 711 01:10:51,49 --> 01:10:55,05 And the different people are different things, but. 712 01:10:55,05 --> 01:10:56,05 Speaker 2: Mm-hm. 713 01:10:56,05 --> 01:11:04,65 Speaker 2: Yeah, so when we go tomorrow, to this lab. 714 01:11:04,65 --> 01:11:05,08 Nicky: Yep. 715 01:11:05,08 --> 01:11:08,31 Speaker 2: We will see a lot of children? 716 01:11:08,31 --> 01:11:10,22 Speaker 2: Or is that tomorrow? 717 01:11:10,22 --> 01:11:16,26 Nicky: Yeah, we're doing children tomorrow and the day after, I believe. Elsa's got a little program. 718 01:11:16,26 --> 01:11:28,25 Speaker 2: So what do you hope to find out with these deaths or procedures or with children? 719 01:11:28,25 --> 01:11:31,85 Nicky: Let's talk about that when we do though, cuz there's lot of different ones. 720 01:11:31,85 --> 01:11:32,22 Speaker 2: Okay. 721 01:11:32,22 --> 01:11:38,69 Nicky: So I'd rather kind of do it with the tests there, cuz otherwise it's gonna be a bit jumbled and jarbled, 722 01:11:39,26 --> 01:11:39,93 I think. 723 01:11:39,93 --> 01:11:42,98 Speaker 2: Yeah,so when you dance, you dance everywhere? 724 01:11:42,98 --> 01:11:46,71 Nicky: What do you mean? 725 01:11:46,71 --> 01:11:55,43 Speaker 2: Well, did you dance outside, or at home, or at a lab, or at a club? 726 01:11:56,51 --> 01:12:02,01 This dancing, you mean, this Tango dancing? Where do you do that? 727 01:12:02,01 --> 01:12:09,75 Nicky: We go to Melongas, which are dance halls, that's the main place you do tango. 728 01:12:10,12 --> 01:12:12,35 And we do them in our talks and performances. 729 01:12:12,35 --> 01:12:12,95 Speaker 2: Okay. 730 01:12:12,95 --> 01:12:15,55 Nicky: I guess sometime we dance at home. 731 01:12:15,55 --> 01:12:24,89 Speaker 2: The last question is, why the tango because you're both not from Argentina? 732 01:12:24,89 --> 01:12:33,63 Nicky: Gosh I don't know how to answer that. It's the poetry of movement, I think, tango. 733 01:12:33,97 --> 01:12:42,69 It's such a beautiful dance because it's, you're so connected with your partner. They talk about it as being four legs. 734 01:12:42,69 --> 01:12:53,6 An animal with four legs and two beating hearts, cuz you're so connected. So there's many forms of dance that I love. 735 01:12:53,6 --> 01:12:57,09 I like ballet and salsa's great fun, 736 01:12:57,43 --> 01:13:06,14 but there's something very powerful about tango because of the connection you have with your partner, so the leader 737 01:13:06,15 --> 01:13:13,99 and the follower, and the way in which you respond as one to the music. I think it's very, very special. 738 01:13:13,99 --> 01:13:19,73 Speaker 2: Does every scientist have this artist inside? 739 01:13:19,73 --> 01:13:22,49 Nicky: Sorry, does every? 740 01:13:22,49 --> 01:13:25,16 Speaker 2: Does every scientist have an artist inside? 741 01:13:25,16 --> 01:13:26,83 Nicky: I don't know. 742 01:13:26,83 --> 01:13:36,9 Nicky: It's not very common is it to be a scientist and be an artist in residence somewhere. And equally, of course. 743 01:13:36,9 --> 01:13:38,8 Speaker 2: The other way around. 744 01:13:38,8 --> 01:13:41,45 Nicky: There's artists in residence in the psychology department. 745 01:13:41,77 --> 01:13:45,31 So I think we've got something there that is quite unique. 746 01:13:45,88 --> 01:13:54,5 You do hear of artists in residence, but typically, they're short term residences of three months of most the year. 747 01:13:54,84 --> 01:14:00,68 And usually it's the artist comes in to a place, talks to people and then creates a piece of art. 748 01:14:01,5 --> 01:14:11,03 Where as I think that for captured thought what Clive and I do is truly collaborative. 749 01:14:11,91 --> 01:14:16,76 It's not Clive comes and has a cup of coffee with me and then creates something. 750 01:14:17,09 --> 01:14:22,57 I have a chat with Clive and we go off and do an experiment. And occasionally we meet up and talk about them. 751 01:14:22,71 --> 01:14:29,52 I mean the whole project that we're doing is interwoven together. 752 01:14:30,00 --> 01:14:36,17 So all our talks are written jointly and performed jointly. 753 01:14:37,4 --> 01:14:52,67 And you might think of it as being 50% Nicki and 50% Clive, but really it's more like two percent Nicki 754 01:14:53,00 --> 01:15:00,12 and two percent Clive and 96% licking Clive integrated 755 01:15:00,13 --> 01:15:07,39 and two percent I'm only saying because obviously one voice is speaking while the other is silent and then vice versa. 756 01:15:07,99 --> 01:15:21,53 But all the thoughts and all the ideas are, have collaborative mixture, and I hope 757 01:15:21,72 --> 01:15:30,33 and I think that as a result it's like a Gestalt phenomenon that we are being able to share more 758 01:15:30,34 --> 01:15:33,95 and do more than either of us could do alone. 759 01:15:34,38 --> 01:15:40,92 I certainly feel that I wouldn't have got so nearly so far in my thinking about things if it hadn't been for Clive 760 01:15:40,93 --> 01:15:44,53 and I collaborating. And it's not just an odd discussion here and there. 761 01:15:44,68 --> 01:15:51,2 It really is this integrated, interwoven working together and thinking together. 762 01:15:52,72 --> 01:16:00,16 And trying to make new connections between disparate sources, that alone I wouldn't have thought of. 763 01:16:00,61 --> 01:16:08,32 But together, with Clive, we can kind of push each other to explore further. 764 01:16:09,75 --> 01:16:19,88 So that's why I feel that it's more than what you normally see in a collaboration. It's an integration.