Centre for Behaviour and Evolution, Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Henry Wellcome Building for Neuroecology, Framlington Place, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, UK.
Anim Cogn. 2011 Mar;14(2):235-43. doi: 10.1007/s10071-010-0357-2. Epub 2010 Dec 4.
Much importance has been placed on the use of spatial cues by food-hoarding birds in the retrieval of their caches. In this study, we investigate whether food-hoarding birds can be trained to use local cues ("beacons") in their cache retrieval. We test magpies (Pica pica) in an active hoarding-retrieval paradigm, where local cues are always reliable, while spatial cues are not. Our results show that the birds use the local cues to retrieve their caches, even when occasionally contradicting spatial information is available. The design of our study does not allow us to test rigorously whether the birds prefer using local over spatial cues, nor to investigate the process through which they learn to use local cues. We furthermore provide evidence that magpies develop landmark preferences, which improve their retrieval accuracy. Our findings support the hypothesis that birds are flexible in their use of memory information, using a combination of the most reliable or salient information to retrieve their caches.
在食物贮藏鸟类的取食过程中，空间线索的利用受到了广泛关注。本研究旨在探讨贮藏取食鸟类是否可以通过训练来利用局部线索（“信标”）进行取食。我们在主动贮藏-取食范式中对喜鹊进行了测试，在该范式中，局部线索始终是可靠的，而空间线索则不可靠。我们的结果表明，鸟类利用局部线索来取回贮藏物，即使有时会出现与空间信息相矛盾的情况。本研究的设计不允许我们严格测试鸟类是否更倾向于使用局部线索而不是空间线索，也不允许我们研究它们学习使用局部线索的过程。此外，我们还提供了证据表明，喜鹊会形成地标偏好，从而提高它们的取食准确性。我们的研究结果支持了这样一种假设，即鸟类在使用记忆信息时具有灵活性，会结合最可靠或最显著的信息来取回贮藏物。
