Lewis Amy, Call Josep, Berntsen Dorthe
School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Mary's Quad, St Andrews, Fife, UK.
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Am J Primatol. 2017 Aug;79(8). doi: 10.1002/ajp.22665. Epub 2017 Apr 13.
Non-human primates are capable of recalling events that occurred as long as 3 years ago, and are able to distinguish between similar events; akin to human memory. In humans, distinctiveness enhances memory for events, however, it is unknown whether the same occurs in non-human primates. As such, we tested three great ape species on their ability to remember an event that varied in distinctiveness. Across three experiments, apes witnessed a baiting event in which one of three identical containers was baited with food. After a delay of 2 weeks, we tested their memory for the location of the baited container. Apes failed to recall the baited container when the event was undistinctive (Experiment 1), but were successful when it was distinctive (Experiment 2), although performance was equally good in a less-distinctive condition. A third experiment (Experiment 3) confirmed that distinctiveness, independent of reinforcement, was a consistent predictor of performance. These findings suggest that distinctiveness may enhance memory for events in non-human primates in the same way as in humans, and provides further evidence of basic similarities between the ways apes and humans remember past events.
非人类灵长类动物能够回忆起长达3年前发生的事件，并能够区分相似的事件；这与人类记忆类似。在人类中，独特性会增强对事件的记忆，然而，在非人类灵长类动物中是否也会如此尚不清楚。因此，我们测试了三种大型猿类记住独特性不同的事件的能力。在三个实验中，猿类目睹了一个诱饵事件，其中三个相同的容器之一被放置了食物。经过两周的延迟后，我们测试了它们对放置诱饵容器位置的记忆。当事件不具独特性时（实验1），猿类无法回忆起放置诱饵的容器，但当事件具有独特性时（实验2），它们成功了，尽管在独特性稍低的情况下表现同样良好。第三个实验（实验3）证实，独特性独立于强化作用，是表现的一致预测指标。这些发现表明，独特性可能以与人类相同的方式增强非人类灵长类动物对事件的记忆，并为猿类和人类记忆过去事件方式的基本相似性提供了进一步证据。
