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Learning is the process of acquiring new information. Memory is:

Learning is the process of acquiring new information. Memory is: The ability to store and retrieve information. Two kinds of memory: Declarative memory deals with what – facts and information acquired through learning that can be stated or described.

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Learning is the process of acquiring new information. Memory is:

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  1. Learning is the process of acquiring new information. Memory is: • The ability to store and retrieve information. Two kinds of memory: • Declarative memory deals with what – facts and information acquired through learning that can be stated or described. • Nondeclarative (procedural) memory deals with how – shown by performance rather than recollection.

  2. Episodic memory (mental time travel) Humans describe specific events, often in the distant past (or future). Tulving (and Suddendorf) claims that episodic memory is unique to humans. But there are degrees of ‘episodic-like’ memory. ‘Episodic-like’ memory in animals is usually restricted to the domains animals are interested in (e.g. food).

  3. “Episodic memory is the form of memory that allows an individual to recollect happenings from his or her past.” (Tulving, 1992)‏ Do animals have Episodic Memory? Episodic Memory in Animals

  4. Tulving's view According to Tulving, animals like his cat have no episodic memory so while they may know many things, they do not remember past experiences the way we do. They just know about them. (Drawing by Ruth Tulving) http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=20

  5. According to Tulving and Markowitsch (1998), the relation between Declarative/ Semantic and Episodic Memory is one of inclusion: while you can have sem M without EM, you cannot have EM without sem M. Semantic and Episodic Memory

  6. Especially the properties that relate to conscious experience of recollection of past episodes are an insurmountable obstacle for the attribution of EM to animals since there are no agreed behavioral markers of conscious recall in animals Studying EM in animals becomes more tractable when the 'old' definition of EM (Tulving, 1972) is applied: EM is “the retrieval of information about 'where' a unique event or episode took place, 'what' occurred during the episode, and 'when' the episode happened”. These spatio-temporal properties of EM can be demonstrated in the behavior of animals. The 'what', 'when' & 'where' of an episode

  7. 1. The recollection relates to a single past episode 2. The recollection is accurate and specific:'when' and 'where'? 3. Birds even remember 'what' they have cached Arguments for EM in food caching birds (here: scrub jay) • → it is an adaptive advantage for birds to remember, where, when, and what they have cached, so EM should be evolutionary favored.

  8. Independent variables: 1. When: Time 1 (4 h later), Time 2 (+120 h later)‏ 2. Where: Location 1, Location 2 (two adjacent sites)‏ 3. What: perishable Worms W; non-perish. Peanuts P Dependent variable: number of searches for P and W Experimental paradigm(Clayton and Dickinson 1998)‏ Pre-experimental manipulations: 'Degrade' G- Group: Has learned that the favored worms decay after 120 h, so will not search for them 'Replenish' R-Group: Has learned that worms are still fresh (since replenished) after 120 h, so will search for them since they prefer worms over peanuts

  9. Peanut/Worm PW trial: 1. Peanut is cached in Location L1 2. 124 h later: Worm is cached in Location L2 3. 4 h later: where will jay search? Worm/Peanut WP trial: 1. Worms are cached in L1 2. 124 h later: Peanuts are cached in L2 3. 4 h later: where will jay search? Experimental paradigm(Clayton and Dickinson 1998)‏

  10. PW / Degrade group

  11. Replenish Group: Will search for Worms on both P/W and W/P trials since, in their experience, “Worms are still fresh at 124 h” Hypotheses: • Degrade Group: • Will search for Worms only in P/W trials, since 4 h after caching “W are still fresh“ • Will NOT search for worms in W/P trials, since 124 h later “W will have perished“

  12. Hypotheses are borne out: D group, P/W trial: W > P R group, P/W trial: W > P D group, W/P trial: P > W R group, W/P trial: W > P Results P/W trial W/P trials

  13. The results cannot be explained by Differential forgetting of Worms and Peanuts Genetic predisposition to prefer worms, but altered after learning Crucially, the W/P preference was reversed for the D and the R group after having cached worms for the long interval: only R-birds would recover them, not D-birds This requires recall of the following information: 'what': worms vs. Peanuts 'where': Location 1 vs. 2 'when': short vs. long interval This can hardly be explained by familiarity (sem. M) alone. Discussion

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