New research study shows that Eurasian jays have a memory comparable to human episodic memory, allowing them to remember incidental details about previous occasions, which may assist them in locating food.A research study has discovered that jays can keep in mind incidental details, which is comparable to episodic memory in humans.According to a research study just recently released in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, Eurasian jays have the ability to remember incidental information of previous occasions, a quality a sign of episodic memory in humans. This research was performed by James Davies and his group at the University of Cambridge, UK.When keeping in mind occasions, human beings have the capability to “mental time travel,” purposely reimagining previous experiences and possibly remembering information that appeared unimportant at the time. Some researchers have suggested that this “episodic memory” is distinct to humans. In this research study, Davies and coworkers ran a memory experiment to evaluate for episodic-like memory in seven Eurasian jays, birds that excel at keeping in mind the area of stored food.Jaylo the jay watching as food is put in the cup with the blue string in the encoding stage. Credit: James Davies, CC-BY 4.0 In the experiment, the birds saw food get put below one cup in a line of four identical cups and were then rewarded for correctly selecting the baited cup. Over several trials, the birds were trained to identify the proper cup by remembering its position in line. Then, at test, the jays were provided an unanticipated memory evaluation: they watched food get placed beneath one of the cups, which now all had distinct visual attributes, however they were then separated from the cups for 10 minutes while the cups were moved and rearranged. Despite the altered positions of the cups and the included dead time, the birds still properly determined the baited cup according to their visual characteristics 70% of the time.Implications of the StudyThese outcomes suggest that despite the fact that visual differences between the cups were unimportant throughout training, the birds had the ability to notice those distinctions at test and recall them later, comparable to episodic memory in people. This research study suggests that episodic-like memory may assist jays in finding grocery store, and the scientists suggest that future studies may examine whether the birds can perform comparable feats of memory in other non-food-related scenarios.The authors include: “As the jays had the ability to remember information that held no specific worth or importance at the time that the memory was produced, this recommends that they are able to record, recall, and access incidental information within a remembered occasion. This is an ability that identifies the type of human memory through which we psychologically relive past occasions (or episodes), called episodic memory.” Reference: “Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) reveal episodic-like memory through the incidental encoding of info” by James R. Davies, Elias Garcia-Pelegrin and Nicola S. Clayton, 15 May 2024, PLOS ONE.DOI: 10.1371/ journal.pone.0301298.