Characteristics of Spatial Memory

我们所有人都曾在某个时候特别努力， 把一件珍贵的东西放在一个特殊的地方 隐藏得很好。 我们也确信我们永远不会忘记这一点 位置. 然而，当我们要取回这个物体时， 我不记得我们把它藏在哪里了。有些种类的鸟 在美国西部也有类似的行为，但其中一个 重要的区别。 他们似乎没有忘记 隐藏的宝藏 使用空间记忆的一个最引人注目的例子是 由储存种子的鸟类提供， 数千个不同的地点 空间记忆 在这些物种中是强大的，持续时间长。 在这个系列中 Balda博士和他的同事们将研究 克拉克的胡桃夹子，松鸦， 和灌丛松鸦使用精心管理的实验室程序， 许多变量都可以被操纵和控制。 在大自然中，这些鸟每年秋天 从当地的针叶树上收获松树种子， 种子离开一段距离，然后把种子埋在 地下储藏室 这些缓存的种子没有暴露， 无法被检测到。 然而，这些鸟回到这些藏匿点 几个月后，恢复他们的缓存，几乎没有错误 精度 需要解决的问题包括： 小鸟记得吗？ 这些网站能被记住多久？ 如何 这种行为是在幼鸟身上发展起来的吗 有没有物种 鸟类能记住多少信息 这项研究的结果将有助于我们了解空间 在进化和行为层面上的记忆， 从广泛的角度了解动物认知 从生物学和心理学的角度来看。

All of us have, at one time or another, taken special pains to place a prized object in some special location where it would be well hidden. We were also sure we would never forget this location. However, when it was time to retrieve the object, we could not remember where we had hidden it. Some species of birds in the western U.S. perform a similar behavior, but with one important difference. They appear not to forget the location of their hidden treasure. One of the most dramatic examples of the use of spatial memory is provided by seed-caching birds that remember the location of thousands of distinct locations for many months. Spatial memory in these species is robust and of long duration. In this series of experiments, Dr. Balda and his colleagues will study the nature of this memory system in Clark's nutcracker, pinyon jays, and scrub jays using carefully managed laboratory procedures in which many variables can be manipulated and controlled. In nature, these birds spend hundreds of hours each autumn harvesting pine seeds from native conifer trees, carrying these seeds off some distance, and then burying the seeds in underground caches. These cached seeds are not exposed and cannot be detected. Yet, these birds return to these cache sites months later and recover their caches with almost errorless accuracy. Questions to be addressed include: How many cache sites can a bird remember? How long can these sites be remembered? How does this behavior develop in young birds? Are there species differences in how much information birds can remember? The results of this research will help us to understand spatial memory at both the evolutionary and behavioral levels and to develop an understanding of animal cognition in a broad biological and psychological perspective.