Non-goal directed recall of specific events in apes after long delays
Abstract
We examined if apes spontaneously remember one-time, distinctive events across long delays when probed by discriminant cues. Apes witnessed an experimenter hide a cache of food, which they could then retrieve. They retrieved one of two food types; one more distinctive than the other. Two, 10 or 50 weeks later, the apes returned to the same enclosure and found a piece of the previously hidden food on the ground. An experimenter who had not hidden the food was also present. Apes immediately searched the location where the food was previously hidden (no food was here), showing recall of the event. One week later, apes returned to the same enclosure, with the same food on the ground, but now the experimenter that had hidden the food was present. Again, apes immediately searched the hiding location. Apes that had not witnessed the hiding event did not search. There was no significant effect of food type, and retention declined from exposure to the two-week delay, then levelled, consistent with the forgetting curve in humans (Ebbinghaus, H. 1964 Memory: a contribution to experimental psychology (transl. H.A. Ruger & C.E. Bussenvis). New York, NY: Dover. (Original work published 1885.)). This is the first study to show apes can recall a one-time, non-goal-directed event longer than two weeks ago and that apes' recall declines in accordance with a standard retention function.
Citation
Lewis , A , Call , J & Bernsten , D 2017 , ' Non-goal directed recall of specific events in apes after long delays ' , Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , vol. 284 , no. 1858 . https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.0518
Publication
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0962-8452Type
Journal article
Description
This research was funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF89).Collections
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