Use of incidentally encoded memory from a single experience in cats

Pet memoirs: The characteristics of event memories in cats and dogs, as reported by their owners

“…Both cats and dogs reportedly remembered events that occurred many months ago. Dogs can recall memories from weeks ago (Demant, Ladewig, Balsby, & Dabelsteen, 2011), but as far as we are aware, the longest delay observed in cats has been minutes (Okujava et al, 2005;Takagi et al, 2017), although see Saito and Shinozuka (2013) for an example of long-term recognition in cats.…”

“…We expanded the study to include cats, as little is known regarding cat cognition despite the similarities between cats and dogs-both are carnivorous mammals that have been selectively bred and domesticated by humans and kept as companions (see Vitale Shreve & Udell, 2015 for a review on cat cognition). Furthermore, a paradigm originally designed to test dogs' memory of an event found that cats can also remember what and where information from a single episode (Takagi et al, 2017), indicating possible similarities between event memories in cats and dogs.…”

Age‐related cognitive impairments in domestic cats naturally infected with feline immunodeficiency virus

“…Tests to evaluate working memory for hidden food were first administered to domestic cats with a maximum retention interval of 60 seconds 82 . More recently, Takagi et al 77 . studied working memory in domestic cats with a delay phase of approximately 15 minutes (a range of 12–23 minutes): subjects were required to retrieve and utilize incidentally encoded information from a single past experience in a simple food‐exploration task.…”

“…The owner or shelter caretaker held the cat to prevent it from moving away from the starting position. During the Interval phase (after the cat had witnessed which container was baited), the owner/caretaker was asked to distract the cat by taking it out of the room, 77 keeping the containers out of the cat's sight for 4 minutes 78 . For the Testing phase , the cat was placed back at the starting point and given 10 minutes to walk around freely, approach the containers, and to make a choice.…”

“…More recently, Takagi et al 77 studied working memory in domestic cats with a delay phase of approximately 15 minutes (a range of 12-23 minutes): subjects were required to retrieve and utilize incidentally encoded information from a single past experience in a simple food-exploration task. While Fiset and Doré 82 showed that cats' working memory declines between 10 and 30 seconds, results from Takagi et al 77 suggested that cats could retrieve not only "where" information but also "what" information from a single past event for much longer periods, even beyond the previously believed working memory capacity of cats for retaining information. The other important factor for choosing an appropriate cognitive test for cats is the test's sensitivity to cover aspects of domestic cat cognitive function.…”