Did I saw or did I smelt something?

Cuttlefish are able to retrieve perceptual features of a previous event: did I saw or did I smelt something before?

Can you tell whether you truly enjoyed your last holiday? Answering such a question requires you to revisit your personal past and retrieve specific features belonging to your memories (e.g. affective, perceptual and contextual features).

In this study published in Scientific Reports, our results suggest that cuttlefish can retrieve perceptual features of a previous event, namely whether they had seen or smelled an item.

Cuttlefish were trained to retrieve the modality of the presentation of fish, shrimp, and crabs, by choosing different panels according to the modality. After training, cuttlefish successfully performed the task with other items never encountered before (for example a mussel). This study is the first to show the ability to discriminate between two sensory modalities (i.e. see vs smell) in an animal. Finally, cuttlefish tested passed another transfer test but this time with a delay of 3 hrs between the presentation of the item and the panels allowing them to choose. Taken together, these results suggest that cuttlefish can retrieve perceptual features of a previous event, namely whether they had seen or smelled an item.