Imaginative Minds: An Interdisciplinary Symposium

30 April-1 May 2004

The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH

Andrew Whiten

Andrew Whiten is Professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology, and Wardlaw Professor of Psychology, at the University of St Andrews. His research interests centre on the evolution and development of mind, particularly aspects of social cognition. The evolutionary perspective has been pursued principally through research on non-human primates, studied in the wild and in captivity, using both ethological observations and behavioural experiments. Developmental issues are studied in both young children and juvenile primates. Recent work has focussed on social or ‘Machiavellian’ intelligence, social learning and the transmission of culture. An interest in conjunctions in the occurence of such cognitive phenomena as pretence, theory of mind and imitation, in both developmental and evolutionary frames of reference, provide the linkage to the present symposium.