معرفی
Prof Amanda Seed is a Professor at the School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on the evolution of cognitive flexibility and abstract reasoning across species, particularly in non-human primates and children. She investigates causal reasoning, object concepts, and executive functions like inhibition and working memory. Key projects include cross-species comparisons of physical reasoning, causal understanding, and the evolutionary pressures shaping intelligence in large-brained animals like corvids and parrots.
Her work spans developmental psychology and comparative cognition, with a focus on understanding how cognitive processes evolved to enable uniquely human thinking. Prof Seed has supervised PhD students including Kaustabh Baruah, Janie Fink, and Rasmus Overmark. Current research explores trap problems in primates and children, causal structure inference in non-human animals, and short-term memory in capuchin monkeys using virtual environments.
Publications highlight investigations into sequence memory, tool-use evolution, and causal knowledge in chimpanzees. While no specific awards are listed, her contributions to comparative and evolutionary cognition are widely recognized in academic circles. Her lab focuses on integrating experimental psychology with evolutionary theory to explain cognitive adaptations.
