Dr Fay Clark

My work can best be described as experimental psychology with a comparative emphasis. I develop cognitive task apparatuses to test cognitive skills, and/or provide 'enrichment' to impaired environments. There is also a human twist; even though I have specialised in the study of nonhuman animals I draw heavily from human studies of learning, motivation and response to challenge.

Key research questions 

• What are the parallels between human and animal mental health, particularly 'game psychology' (play, challenge)?
• How do environmental challenges affect the way animals feel and behave?
• How can we experimentally challenge participants in order to develop their cognitive skills?
• As our world rapidly changes (climate change, habitat loss, emerging infectious disease...) how will our wildlife adapt to these changes, and how can we feed cognition into conservation?