An evaluation of memory accuracy in food hoarding marsh tits Poecile palustris – how accurate are they compared to humans?

Brodin, Anders; Urhan, A. Utku

doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2013.03.009

Cited by 5 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…In a previous study we, somewhat unexpectedly, found that humans performed much better than marsh tits Poecile palustris when they are tested in a typical laboratory designed for bird caching experiments (Brodin and Urhan 2013). Marsh tits made 25 % correct looks in the first five attempts and just above 40 % correct ones in the first ten attempts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…The bird would then willingly fly into its lit up home cage. This method is commonly used to minimize stress caused by handling in food hoarding experiments (Brodin and Urhan 2013).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our results agreed with previous similar studies. Under laboratory conditions, parids such as marsh tits will retrieve 30-50 % of the caches in the first ten attempts from 100 possible caching locations (see references in Brodin and Urhan 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we have designed a food hoarding experiment to test for such interference over repeated sessions. As we compared marsh tits and humans in our previous study (Brodin and Urhan 2013), we include both species also in this study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the birds were food-deprived and motivated to search (Brodin and Urhan 2013), low motivation could not be the reason for the low success, but there could be some factor in the laboratory environment that reduces retrieval success compared to natural conditions. In a typical laboratory hoarding experiment of this type, the birds will first be trained to cache in some hoarding arena with a predetermined number of caching sites.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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No evidence for memory interference across sessions in food hoarding marsh tits Poecile palustris under laboratory conditions

Urhan

Brodin

2015

Anim Cogn

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Scatter hoarding birds are known for their accurate spatial memory. In a previous experiment, we tested the retrieval accuracy in marsh tits in a typical laboratory set-up for this species. We also tested the performance of humans in this experimental set-up. Somewhat unexpectedly, humans performed much better than marsh tits. In the first five attempts, humans relocated almost 90 % of the caches they had hidden 5 h earlier. Marsh tits only relocated 25 % in the first five attempts and just above 40 % in the first ten attempts. Typically, in this type of experiment, the birds will be caching and retrieving many times in the same sites in the same experimental room. This is very different from the conditions in nature where hoarding parids only cache once in a caching site. Hence, it is possible that memories from previous sessions will disturb the formation of new memories. If there is such proactive interference, the prediction is that success should decay over sessions. Here, we have designed an experiment to investigate whether there is such memory interference in this type of experiment. We allowed marsh tits and humans to cache and retrieve in three repeated sessions without prior experience of the arena. The performance did not change over sessions, and on average, marsh tits correctly visited around 25 % of the caches in the first five attempts. The corresponding success in humans was constant across sessions, and it was around 90 % on average. We conclude that the somewhat poor performance of the marsh tits did not depend on proactive memory interference. We also discuss other possible reasons for why marsh tits in general do not perform better in laboratory experiments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…The bird would then willingly fly into its lit up home cage. This method is commonly used to minimize stress caused by handling in food hoarding experiments (Brodin and Urhan 2013).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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