There are some birds in the world that possess human being like episodic memory, new research revealed.
According to CNN, psychologist defines episodic memory as an ability to go back in the past and recall little incidental details.
A new published in the journal PLOS One indicated that episodic memory is an ability humans share with the bird species called Eurasian jay.
The first author of the study said, “(With episodic memory) you’re remembering an event or an episode, hence the name. You kind of mentally relive it. It also involves other kinds of details that make up that experience, so sounds, sights, even your thoughts or your mood at the time.”
He explained, “It’s often helpful to think about episodic memory as remembering, whereas semantic memory is just knowing. There’s not really a conscious recall involved.”
To find whether the Eurasian jay is capable of mental time travel, the researchers, Davies and Clayton, did an experiment and worked with birds that had been trained to find food hidden under the cup.
After completing the experiment, Davies suggested that the mental process of the bird might involve asking themselves, “Where’s the food? I remember going to the one with the black square on it. I’ll go to that one.”
Dr. Jonathon Crystal, a provost professor of psychological and brain sciences, said, “This study provides strong evidence for episodic memory in Eurasian jays. If you can answer that unexpected question after incidental encoding, that becomes a strong argument that you can remember back in time to the earlier episode, which is at the heart of documenting episodic memory.”
