Information processing in animals

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In keeping with previous work in my laboratory, I propose to explore animals' ability to process the dimensions of time, space, and number. I will continue to examine the question of whether animals have a concept of time and can thus cognitively time travel. Experiments with black-capped chickadees will look for evidence of episodic memory and its temporal basis, and experiments with rats will look for evidence of future planning. Cue competition (overshadowing and blocking) will be examined using the peak procedure when the cues signal different fixed time intervals to food reward. Recent research and theory suggests that humans and animals share a primitive counting process based on magnitude estimation. I have developed a model of number discrimination based on this process that makes specific quantitative predictions about performance. The predictions of this model will be tested in a series of experiments with pigeons. Although recent research indicates that dogs are highly sensitive to human cueing, relatively little is known about their basic cognitive abilities. I will carry out experiments with dogs to examine their spatial memory, ability to keep track of time, and ability to discriminate between different numbers of events.