OBJECTIVES
In the past, we have demonstrated that cuttlefish (cephalopod mollusc) keep track of what they have eaten, and where and how long ago they ate, in order to match their foraging behaviour with the time of replenishing of different foods (Jozet-Alves et al. (2013) Current Biology). This cognitive ability fulfils the criteria of ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ of unique events and this study has provided the first behavioural evidence of episodic-like memory in an invertebrate. The CoMeTT project aims to study the capacity of remember the past and plan for the future in cuttlefish and also in another cephalopod species, the common octopus Octopus vulgaris. This project will be helpful to determine whether such abilities have specifically evolved in cuttlefish or whether it is more widely observed in modern cephalopods. Results of this project will facilitate the understanding of ecological pressures that may have led to the emergence of complex cognitive abilities in the animal kingdom.
WP1: Do cephalopods recall the past?
The first objective is to go further in the study of retrospective mental time travel in both cuttlefish and octopuses, by testing: 1) flexibility of episodic-like memory, a behavioural criterion which has not yet been tested; 2) source memory which has been suggested to allow vertebrates to differentiate one event from another. Answering this question will be helpful to better understand what aspects of mental time travel are similar or not in vertebrates and cephalopods.
WP2: Do cephalopods plan for the future?
The second major aim of our project is to test whether modern cephalopods possess future-planning abilities. This experiment will test the hypothesis that episodic memory has evolved to serve future planning. This will provide insights into understanding the link between retrospective and prospective mental time travel.
WP3: What are the neural substrates of mental time travel in cephalopods?
A mechanistic, bottom-up approach is needed, with a focus on exploring the neural underpinnings of an analogue of mental time travel in cephalopods, to pinpoint the neural machinery necessary for mental time travel.
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