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Comparing the non-linguistic hallmarks of episodic memory systems in corvids and children

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Jelbert, SA 
Clayton, NS 

Abstract

Much of the debate over whether food-caching corvids possess an episodic memory system — comparable to that of humans — has focussed on these birds’ memories for what was cached, where and when. Here, we highlight that corvids also exhibit a number of other behaviours that could potentially be considered non-linguistic hallmarks of an episodic-memory system, including the ability to produce rich, flexible representations of various past events, and to prepare for specific events in the future in a number of different ways. Direct comparisons of these experiments are beginning to emerge with young children. These studies allow us to determine whether performance on episodic-like memory tasks follows a similar developmental trajectory to performance on other measures of episodic memory. Here, we discuss some of the similarities and differences between the minds of corvids and children that have emerged from this research to date.

Description

Keywords

5204 Cognitive and Computational Psychology, 52 Psychology, Neurosciences, Pediatric, 1 Underpinning research, 1.2 Psychological and socioeconomic processes

Journal Title

Current Opinion in Behavioural Sciences

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2352-1546
2352-1546

Volume Title

17

Publisher

Elsevier
Sponsorship
European Research Council (339993)
SAJ and NSC received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. 3399933, awarded to NSC.