title: Food caching by western scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica) is sensitive to the conditions at recovery.
abstract: Western scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica) cached perishable and nonperishable food items, which they could recover after both short and long retention intervals. When perishable items were always degraded at recovery, jays decreased the number of perishable items cached and increased their caching of nonperishable items, relative to a control group whose caches were always fresh at recovery. Jays reduced the number of nonperishable items cached, however, when highly preferred food items were degraded only after the long retention intervals. The findings are discussed in terms of the role of retrospective and prospective processes in the control of caching.
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, England. nsc22@cam.ac.uk
authors.forename: Nicola S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Clayton
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dally
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gilbert
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dickinson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D001717:Birds; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D013997:Time Factors