Crows control working memory before and after stimulus encoding

Abstract The capacity of working memory is limited and this limit is comparable in crows and primates. To maximize this resource, humans use attention to select only relevant information for maintenance. Interestingly, attention-cues are effective not only before but also after the presentation of t...

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Autores principales:	Erica Fongaro, Jonas Rose
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2020
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/bcc911812a9c4d0ab9255a9978c6c1e9
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:bcc911812a9c4d0ab9255a9978c6c1e92021-12-02T16:23:09ZCrows control working memory before and after stimulus encoding10.1038/s41598-020-59975-42045-2322https://doaj.org/article/bcc911812a9c4d0ab9255a9978c6c1e92020-02-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59975-4https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract The capacity of working memory is limited and this limit is comparable in crows and primates. To maximize this resource, humans use attention to select only relevant information for maintenance. Interestingly, attention-cues are effective not only before but also after the presentation of to-be-remembered stimuli, highlighting control mechanisms beyond sensory selection. Here we explore if crows are also capable of these forms of control over working memory. Two crows (Corvus corone) were trained to memorize two, four or six visual stimuli. Comparable to our previous results, the crows showed a decrease in performance with increasing working memory load. Using attention cues, we indicated the critical stimulus on a given trial. These cues were either presented before (pre-cue) or after sample-presentation (retro-cue). On other trials no cue was given as to which stimulus was critical. We found that both pre- and retro-cues enhance the performance of the birds. These results show that crows, like humans, can utilize attention to select relevant stimuli for maintenance in working memory. Importantly, crows can also utilize cues to make the most of their working memory capacity even after the stimuli are already held in working memory. This strongly implies that crows can engage in efficient control over working memory.Erica FongaroJonas RoseNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 10, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Erica Fongaro Jonas Rose Crows control working memory before and after stimulus encoding
description	Abstract The capacity of working memory is limited and this limit is comparable in crows and primates. To maximize this resource, humans use attention to select only relevant information for maintenance. Interestingly, attention-cues are effective not only before but also after the presentation of to-be-remembered stimuli, highlighting control mechanisms beyond sensory selection. Here we explore if crows are also capable of these forms of control over working memory. Two crows (Corvus corone) were trained to memorize two, four or six visual stimuli. Comparable to our previous results, the crows showed a decrease in performance with increasing working memory load. Using attention cues, we indicated the critical stimulus on a given trial. These cues were either presented before (pre-cue) or after sample-presentation (retro-cue). On other trials no cue was given as to which stimulus was critical. We found that both pre- and retro-cues enhance the performance of the birds. These results show that crows, like humans, can utilize attention to select relevant stimuli for maintenance in working memory. Importantly, crows can also utilize cues to make the most of their working memory capacity even after the stimuli are already held in working memory. This strongly implies that crows can engage in efficient control over working memory.
format	article
author	Erica Fongaro Jonas Rose
author_facet	Erica Fongaro Jonas Rose
author_sort	Erica Fongaro
title	Crows control working memory before and after stimulus encoding
title_short	Crows control working memory before and after stimulus encoding
title_full	Crows control working memory before and after stimulus encoding
title_fullStr	Crows control working memory before and after stimulus encoding
title_full_unstemmed	Crows control working memory before and after stimulus encoding
title_sort	crows control working memory before and after stimulus encoding
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/bcc911812a9c4d0ab9255a9978c6c1e9
work_keys_str_mv	AT ericafongaro crowscontrolworkingmemorybeforeandafterstimulusencoding AT jonasrose crowscontrolworkingmemorybeforeandafterstimulusencoding
_version_	1718384195239149568

Crows control working memory before and after stimulus encoding

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