Dr Fay Clark
@drfayclark.bsky.social
Senior Lecturer: University of Bristol | PI: Comparative Challenge Lab | Co-Founder: ManyZoos | Finding Flow in animals | Primates | Cetaceans | 🧠🧩
Work is now well underway to assess if animals have the capacity for flow state (optimal activity-based experience). What a dream team of collaborators - Shivani Patel Alex Taylor Sara Hintze and Jeroen Lemmens (not on BlueSky yet!) spanning species, continents, settings, disciplines & approaches.
November 7, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Work is now well underway to assess if animals have the capacity for flow state (optimal activity-based experience). What a dream team of collaborators - Shivani Patel Alex Taylor Sara Hintze and Jeroen Lemmens (not on BlueSky yet!) spanning species, continents, settings, disciplines & approaches.
It turns out an ideal place to rest and mend a broken foot is the Norwegian fjords (a little tricky to get there but worth it!)
August 20, 2025 at 10:15 AM
It turns out an ideal place to rest and mend a broken foot is the Norwegian fjords (a little tricky to get there but worth it!)
A large benefit of an industry (enviro NGO) background is being able to get research done on a creative shoestring - begging, borrowing & building equipment/consumables. In academia, a large downside is trying to scale up operations & impacts in an equally dire funding landscape. Erm, how??!
July 29, 2025 at 8:39 AM
A large benefit of an industry (enviro NGO) background is being able to get research done on a creative shoestring - begging, borrowing & building equipment/consumables. In academia, a large downside is trying to scale up operations & impacts in an equally dire funding landscape. Erm, how??!
My sound track for Bristol➡️St Andrews is all sorted! 🎧
@manymindspod.bsky.social was the obvious choice, given that I’m joining the @divintelligence.bsky.social and wider Diverse Intelligence gang for their annual summit 🙌 🧠
@manymindspod.bsky.social was the obvious choice, given that I’m joining the @divintelligence.bsky.social and wider Diverse Intelligence gang for their annual summit 🙌 🧠
July 17, 2025 at 2:36 PM
My sound track for Bristol➡️St Andrews is all sorted! 🎧
@manymindspod.bsky.social was the obvious choice, given that I’m joining the @divintelligence.bsky.social and wider Diverse Intelligence gang for their annual summit 🙌 🧠
@manymindspod.bsky.social was the obvious choice, given that I’m joining the @divintelligence.bsky.social and wider Diverse Intelligence gang for their annual summit 🙌 🧠
Jurassic World had some pretty cool speculative dinosaur skills. Mutualistic hunting, T-rex swimming… a possible hint at mirror self recognition!? I absolutely loved dinosaurs growing up, and never in 200 million yrs thought I’d get to study ‘living dinosaur’ cognition rdcu.be/evZCt
July 12, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Jurassic World had some pretty cool speculative dinosaur skills. Mutualistic hunting, T-rex swimming… a possible hint at mirror self recognition!? I absolutely loved dinosaurs growing up, and never in 200 million yrs thought I’d get to study ‘living dinosaur’ cognition rdcu.be/evZCt
Just returned from a @affect-evo.bsky.social in Latvia, where we discussed how to map out affective states across phylogeny. No easy feat! Very proud to co-lead the 'joy' subgroup & will try my best to represent captive wildlife. A super challenging yet exciting COST Action to be a part of!
July 4, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Just returned from a @affect-evo.bsky.social in Latvia, where we discussed how to map out affective states across phylogeny. No easy feat! Very proud to co-lead the 'joy' subgroup & will try my best to represent captive wildlife. A super challenging yet exciting COST Action to be a part of!
The #UFAW2025 conference was 💯! Highly flexible for multiple time zones and balancing other work (you can still register post hoc to access the recordings, I believe). My talk on animal gameplay was a call to develop rule-based challenges for animals so they can play well & develop skills.
June 26, 2025 at 7:11 PM
The #UFAW2025 conference was 💯! Highly flexible for multiple time zones and balancing other work (you can still register post hoc to access the recordings, I believe). My talk on animal gameplay was a call to develop rule-based challenges for animals so they can play well & develop skills.
I will be talking about 'fun and games' at the @ufaw.bsky.social international research conference on 26 June. 🎲
June 16, 2025 at 10:23 AM
I will be talking about 'fun and games' at the @ufaw.bsky.social international research conference on 26 June. 🎲
So excited to see that my June cover story in The Psychologist (British Psychological Society publication) is finally out! I talk all things animals - from the dry subject of Pavlov’s dog to the cognition of endangered species, and more.
Free to read online www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...
Free to read online www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...
May 28, 2025 at 2:16 PM
So excited to see that my June cover story in The Psychologist (British Psychological Society publication) is finally out! I talk all things animals - from the dry subject of Pavlov’s dog to the cognition of endangered species, and more.
Free to read online www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...
Free to read online www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...
An interesting assumption by Google’s AI feature… (this is my research I asked it to summarise, btw!)
May 21, 2025 at 8:25 PM
An interesting assumption by Google’s AI feature… (this is my research I asked it to summarise, btw!)
LEMURS CAN PLAY CONNECT4! Not really... but the concept of animals 'playing games' is not as crazy as it looks and sounds. A game is a challenge with known parameters, and play develops skill. Levelling up the study of animal gameplay, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (2025)
May 12, 2025 at 3:37 PM
LEMURS CAN PLAY CONNECT4! Not really... but the concept of animals 'playing games' is not as crazy as it looks and sounds. A game is a challenge with known parameters, and play develops skill. Levelling up the study of animal gameplay, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (2025)
Really happy that our first empirical research on non-verbal indicators of flow state will be published very soon.... It's been a slow journey to set a programme of research up properly but it's all starting to come together! Watch this space for games, flow, and good feelings.
April 8, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Really happy that our first empirical research on non-verbal indicators of flow state will be published very soon.... It's been a slow journey to set a programme of research up properly but it's all starting to come together! Watch this space for games, flow, and good feelings.
When the manuscript reviewer is beyond grumpy and closer to nasty... I always think to myself "Should I write to the editor and complain so this doesn't happen to someone else?" or "Should I just play the game and pander to them so I can finish the paper, even though I'm almost in tears?".
April 3, 2025 at 2:06 PM
When the manuscript reviewer is beyond grumpy and closer to nasty... I always think to myself "Should I write to the editor and complain so this doesn't happen to someone else?" or "Should I just play the game and pander to them so I can finish the paper, even though I'm almost in tears?".
Ostrich versus 5 ft 3 human (located at Oxford Uni Museum of Natural History).
March 4, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Ostrich versus 5 ft 3 human (located at Oxford Uni Museum of Natural History).
We really appreciate the wide media coverage of our research on technical innovation last week. AND we appreciate all the emails coming in from Australia/South America because finally their big birds have finally been shown some love! 🐦 🧠 🦖 🧩 🛞 ❤️
February 25, 2025 at 8:20 AM
We really appreciate the wide media coverage of our research on technical innovation last week. AND we appreciate all the emails coming in from Australia/South America because finally their big birds have finally been shown some love! 🐦 🧠 🦖 🧩 🛞 ❤️
Not so bird-brained any more! In this new paper, we present evidence of technical innovation in palaeognath birds. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
February 20, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Not so bird-brained any more! In this new paper, we present evidence of technical innovation in palaeognath birds. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Animal behaviour occurs in sequences, but sequential analysis is rare. In the comparative Challenge Lab we're analysing gameplay sequences to explore relationships between thinking and feeling. Check out my recent review on animal gameplay here www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
February 12, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Animal behaviour occurs in sequences, but sequential analysis is rare. In the comparative Challenge Lab we're analysing gameplay sequences to explore relationships between thinking and feeling. Check out my recent review on animal gameplay here www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
I am excited to say my 'big bird' research will be published very soon. My son drew me having some sort of heated discussion with a bird...
January 31, 2025 at 9:44 AM
I am excited to say my 'big bird' research will be published very soon. My son drew me having some sort of heated discussion with a bird...
‘Animals in Bad Medieval Art’ was a whole vibe on X/Twitter for a while… I think we need to bring it to BlueSky. I do love ‘Lion has Existential Crisis While Getting Nails Done’. A solid choice for the end of January!
January 28, 2025 at 8:38 AM
‘Animals in Bad Medieval Art’ was a whole vibe on X/Twitter for a while… I think we need to bring it to BlueSky. I do love ‘Lion has Existential Crisis While Getting Nails Done’. A solid choice for the end of January!
Always a wonderful time of year to be in Edinburgh - #ASABwinter2024 is like a big family reunion each year, and we always squeeze in a jolly to St Andrews
December 12, 2024 at 9:49 AM
Always a wonderful time of year to be in Edinburgh - #ASABwinter2024 is like a big family reunion each year, and we always squeeze in a jolly to St Andrews
I have a really exciting PhD opportunity on a highly novel topic: flow state in animals! This is open to students worldwide, drawing on the University of Bristol's strengths in animal cognition, animal welfare and human game design www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
November 23, 2024 at 12:30 PM
I have a really exciting PhD opportunity on a highly novel topic: flow state in animals! This is open to students worldwide, drawing on the University of Bristol's strengths in animal cognition, animal welfare and human game design www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Hello Blue Sky! Follow for research content on: the interface of animal cognition & welfare, especially the psychology of games / cognitive challenge / flow and any cool game designs for cross-species comparisons !! 🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣🔴
December 15, 2023 at 11:49 AM
Hello Blue Sky! Follow for research content on: the interface of animal cognition & welfare, especially the psychology of games / cognitive challenge / flow and any cool game designs for cross-species comparisons !! 🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣🔴