Comment on Like us, I wonder if other animals are kept awake by embarrassing memories
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I don’t think it’s ever been conclusively proven that other animals have episodic memories. (Although it’s very hard to distinguish between actually replaying an experience vs learning the relevant information in a more general way.)
OmegaMouse@pawb.social 6 days ago
That’s fascinating. Does an animal finding an item they buried a week ago not constitute an episodic memory? Considering they’d basically have to retread their steps. Is ‘remembering the relevant information’ not akin to memory of an event?
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 6 days ago
The most suggestive study I’ve seen was of squirrels (or maybe birds), who re-bury nuts at a later date if other squirrels were watching them bury the nuts initially. But it can still be argued that they’re just keeping a mental map with some nuts marked as “need to move” without remembering the specific experiences that made them concerned.
Godort@lemm.ee 6 days ago
Squirrels are known for storing large amounts of nuts all over the place, hense the term “squirreling away” but they often forget about stores, leading to new trees sprouting