Animal Memory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Animal Memory - Essay Example This experiment can serve as a starting point for more researchers on neural networks that enable animals to learn from the environment. This effort requires neuroscientists to look into the brain functions of live animals. Scrub Jays are known to store or cache foods for their consumption. An experiment by Clayton et al. showed a resemblance of rationality in the part of the scrub jays regarding their food caching behavior. Scrub Jays were made to cache perishable and non-perishable foods in distinct trays. Upon retrieval of these food types, scrub jays appeared to display rationality by picking first perishable food over non-perishable ones. A behavior like this, according to the researchers, requires memory of past experiences with types of food in order to make a decision of effectively using his stored food. In another experiment, scrub jays were found to retain memories of pilferage of their cached food and thus resorted to caching food in private or retrieving food in private. These two experiments illustrate the complex behavior of scrub jays which are not witnessed in other animals. Dolphins were found to demonstrate memory of complex commands (Mercado et al. 210). In their experiment, a bottlenosed dolphin was able to replicate 36 behaviors it was tested on. It was also able to perform simultaneous and self-selected activities which signified, according to the researchers, the ability of dolphins to flexibly utilize recent behavior for the replication of complex activities.