Mental time travel in animals: a challenging question.
Humans have the ability to mentally recreate past events (using episodic memory) and imagine future events (by planning). The best evidence for such mental time travel is personal and thus subjective. For this reason, it is particularly difficult to study such behavior in animals. There is some indirect evidence, however, that animals have both episodic memory and the ability to plan for the future. When unexpectedly asked to do so, animals can report about their recent past experiences (episodic memory) and they also appear to be able to use the anticipation of a future event as the basis for a present action (planning). Thus, the ability to imagine past and future events may not be uniquely human.
Zentall
Thomas R
TR
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA. zentall@uky.edu
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D010856:Columbidae; D003210:Concept Formation; D003216:Conditioning, Operant; D007092:Imagination; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D010934:Planning Techniques; D051381:Rats; D013998:Time Perception; D014163:Transfer, Psychology