Background
Aims
Episodic memory is the ability to recall a self-experienced event from the past and reconstruct details from it in the future. With it, encoding of memories is done incidentally, which means that memories are remembered automatically.
Since we are unable to communicate verbally with animals about their previous experiences, assessing this capability in animals is extremely challenging. This is why we make a distinction by referring to episodic-like memory when we are studying it on animals.
An important building block of episodic-like memory is the ability to recall one´s past actions. This ability suggests an internal representation of the self and one´s own agency. To study this ability, the “Repeat” paradigm has been developed, where the subject is asked to repeat its last performed behaviour upon command. This method has been used to study this ability in mammals and one other bird species, the blue-throated macaw.
I tested this paradigm in Great green macaws. Find out how I did it in Materials and Methods.
+ To test if Great green macaws can recall their own previous actions using the “Repeat” paradigm
+ To assess the time constraints of their performance using this specific test method.
