Comparing spatial memory in two species of tit: Recalling a single positive location

Healy, Susan D.; Krebs, John R.

doi:10.3758/bf03200409

Cited by 44 publications

(33 citation statements)

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“…The data suggested (the effect was just short of significance) that the two foodhoarding species' reduction in performance with increasing retention interval (up to 24 h) was shallower (and therefore memory duration longer lasting) than that of the two non-hoarding species. However, studies using a one-trial associative memory design that had a range of retention intervals up to 24 h did not find any evidence (or even non-significant trends) of better performance of food-hoarding tits at the longer retention intervals (Healy & Krebs 1992a;Clayton & Krebs 1993). No studies to date have compared memory duration between hoarding and non-hoarding tits at intervals longer than 24 h though, so the jury remains out on whether having a one-trial memory duration of several weeks is an adaptive specialization of food-hoarding tits or not.…”

Section: Using Ecology To Predict Specific Memory Adaptationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The third prediction was that memory spatial resolution should be better in hoarding than in non-hoarding species. Studies using the same one-trial associative memory task as mentioned above have sometimes (Clayton & Krebs 1993), but not always (Healy & Krebs 1992a;Clayton & Krebs 1994a), shown species differences in the number of mistakes made. Food-hoarding species seem to remember where they have found food, whereas non-hoarding species only seem to remember where they have been (Clayton & Krebs 1994b).…”

Section: Using Ecology To Predict Specific Memory Adaptationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Using ecology to guide the study of cognitive and neural mechanisms of different aspects of spatial memory in food-hoarding animals

Smulders

Gould

Leaver

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Understanding the survival value of behaviour does not tell us how the mechanisms that control this behaviour work. Nevertheless, understanding survival value can guide the study of these mechanisms. In this paper, we apply this principle to understanding the cognitive mechanisms that support cache retrieval in scatter-hoarding animals. We believe it is too simplistic to predict that all scatter-hoarding animals will outperform non-hoarding animals on all tests of spatial memory. Instead, we argue that we should look at the detailed ecology and natural history of each species. This understanding of natural history then allows us to make predictions about which aspects of spatial memory should be better in which species. We use the natural hoarding behaviour of the three best-studied groups of scatter-hoarding animals to make predictions about three aspects of their spatial memory: duration, capacity and spatial resolution, and we test these predictions against the existing literature. Having laid out how ecology and natural history can be used to predict detailed cognitive abilities, we then suggest using this approach to guide the study of the neural basis of these abilities. We believe that this complementary approach will reveal aspects of memory processing that would otherwise be difficult to discover.

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Section: Using Ecology To Predict Specific Memory Adaptationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Using Ecology To Predict Specific Memory Adaptationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using ecology to guide the study of cognitive and neural mechanisms of different aspects of spatial memory in food-hoarding animals

Smulders

Gould

Leaver

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Healy and Krebs (1992) found no difference between marsh tits and blue tits-storing and nonstoring members, respectively, of the parid family-on their ability to retain the location of a single site associated with reinforcement, although performance did approach chance levels as the retention interval approached 24 h. Healy and Krebs suggested that.differences might only be detected if the ability to recall multiple sites was tested. Although there is obviously a difference between recalling the location oftwo sites and recalling the location of hundreds of sites, our results nevertheless demonstrate that pigeons can recall more than a single spatiallocation-food association.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in Experiment 1, our subjects were required to recall only a single positive location (see Healy & Krebs, 1992, for an experiment comparing a storing and a nonstoring species on their ability to recall a single positive location). In the wild, food-storing birds are thought to recall the location of numerous different cache sites, and the possibility exists that differences in spatial memory performance on this type of task would only be detected when subjects are required to recall multiple sites.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

More evidence of robust spatial associative memory in the pigeon,Columba livia

Wilkie

Willson

1995

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Willsonand Wilkie(1993) developed a novel procedure for assessing pigeons' memory for the spatiallocation of food. Only one of four locations (consisting of an illuminated pecking key and grain feeder) provided food each day.Over days, different locations provided food. The pigeons' tendency to revisit the location that was profitable on the previous day demonstrated memory for food-spatiallocation associations over a period of 24 h, retention longer than previously reported for this species. This basic finding was replicated and extended in three experiments. Experiment 1 demonstrated that location-food discriminations were also remembered well when established with successive rather than concurrent procedures. Experiment 2 demonstrated that pigeons can remember two location-food associations over 24 h. Experiment 3 showed that the discrimination training inherent in this paradigm is important for retention; retention was impaired when only the rewarded location was presented. Overall, this research suggests that cross-species differences in spatial memory performance may be due to quantitative rather than qualitative differences in the memory system underlying performance.We have recently developed a new procedure to study pigeons' spatial memory (Willson & Wilkie, 1993). Development of this task was motivated by the persistent reporting of rather short-lived spatial memory in pigeons tested on a variety of spatial memory tasks (e.g., delayed alternation- Olson & Maki, 1983; radial maze-Roberts & Van Veldhuizen, 1985; walking maze-Spetch, 1990; delayed matching-Wilkie & Summers, 1982; keypeck analogue of the radial maze-sZentall, Steirn, & Jackson-Smith, 1990). The often short-lived memory in this species stands in contrast to that reported for several species of food-caching birds (e.g., Sherry, 1984). However, an examination of the tasks on which pigeons' spatial memory has been assessed reveals that they are all working memory tasks (Honig, 1978). In contrast, food-caching birds are thought to use a spatial-location-food associative memory to locate their caches (Brodbeck, Burack, & Shettleworth, 1992;Shettleworth, 1985; but see Olson, 1991, for a direct comparison between pigeons and food-storing birds on a working memory task). Spatial associative The task is straightforward. Pigeons are tested in a large, clear Plexiglas box placed on a table in a well-lit room containing a variety ofvisual cues. A key and grain feeder are located on each of the four walls of the box. Sessions are short (approximately 16 min) and consist of illumination of all four keys, only one of which (randomly selected) produces response-contingent food. Food becomes available on the selected key after the passage of a brief interval at the start of the session. Pigeons quickly discover the rewarded key and persist in responding to that location during the initial nonrewarded period of the next session, even when sessions are separated by 72 h (Willson & Wilkie, 1993). This perseverative responding in the face of extended delays ...

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“…What is important about the knowledge of Equation 3 is that we can test inferences about the expected number of successes out of n sites searched using a Z test rather than a t test, as is commonly employed (e.g., Healy & Krebs, 1992;Hilton & Krebs, 1990;Olton & Samuelson, 1976;Spetch & Edwards, 1986). This is important since the Z test is more powerful (i.e., better able to reject a false null hypothesis) than the t test.…”

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confidence: 99%

New tests for departures from random behavior in spatial memory experiments

Tillé

Newman

Healy

1996

Animal Learning & Behavior

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We present statistical tests for departures from random expectation in spatial memory tasks. We consider two common protocols for spatial memory experiments. In the first one, subjects are allowed to search a fixed number of sites. In the second protocol, subjects are allowed to search until they achieve a fixed number of successes. In either of these protocols, the subjects involved mayor may not revisit sites that have been previously searched or exploited. This yields four situations to consider: fixed number of sites searched or fixed number of successes, with or without revisits. We derive analytical expressions for the probability mass functions, expectations, and variances associated with each type of null hypothesis. Wepresent three statistical tests of these hypotheses: the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the ordinary sign test, and the Z test. Weuse our results to demonstrate a priori calculation of sample sizes and statistical power and to consider a mixed model of sampling with and without replacement.The basis for experiments investigating spatial memory capabilities ofanimals is that animals are able to perform spatial memory tasks better than expected by chance. In spatial memory experiments, such as radial maze experiments, a fixed number of sites is used. Some sites contain food, and others do not. Moreover, two experimental protocols can be used. In the first protocol, animals can explore a fixed number of sites. We shall refer to this protocol as the fixed-number-of-samples/trials protocol. The data that result from this protocol are the number of visited sites containing food. In the second protocol, animals can explore until they have found a fixed number of sites containing food. We shall refer to this second protocol as thefixed-number-of-successes protocol. The data that result from this protocol are the total number ofsites visited.One relevant null hypothesis is that the animals search at random until they find food-storage sites. In many cases, animals search without revisiting locations previously searched; in other cases (e.g., rats that have had their hippocampus lesioned), the animals do revisit previously searched or exploited sites. Again, two cases must be distinguished. In the first case, the hypothesis is that animals explore the sites at random and without replacement. In the second case, we can suppose that animals explore at random with replacement. Four different situations must thus be examined. Animals can search with or without replacement in a protocol where either the number of trials or the number of successes is fixed. In order to test the hypothesis that animals search better than at random, it is necessary to know the probability mass functions of the number of successes (in the fixed-number-of-trials protocol) or of the number of trials (in the fixed-numberof-successes protocol) when animals search at random with or without replacement.At first sight, this problem looks simple and classic. One might think that when an animal searches at random with replacement, the solu...

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Comparing spatial memory in two species of tit: Recalling a single positive location

Cited by 44 publications

References 20 publications

Using ecology to guide the study of cognitive and neural mechanisms of different aspects of spatial memory in food-hoarding animals

Using ecology to guide the study of cognitive and neural mechanisms of different aspects of spatial memory in food-hoarding animals

More evidence of robust spatial associative memory in the pigeon,Columba livia

New tests for departures from random behavior in spatial memory experiments

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