I don’t think it’s ever been conclusively proven that other animals have episodic memories. (Partly because it’s hard to tell whether they’re actually replaying an experience or just remembering the relevant information in a less immediate way, without being able to ask them.)
Showerthoughts
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
That's fascinating. Does an animal finding an item they buried a week ago not constitute an episodic memory? Considering they'd basically have to retrace their steps. Is 'remembering the relevant information' not akin to memory of an event?
The most suggestive study I’ve seen was of squirrels (or crows?) who re-bury nuts at a later date if other squirrels were watching them bury the nuts initially. But it can still be argued that they’re just keeping a mental map with some nuts marked as “need to move” without remembering the specific experiences that made them think the original locations were compromised.
Squirrels are known for storing large amounts of nuts all over the place, hense the term "squirreling away" but they often forget about stores, leading to new trees sprouting
Back in my dogyears on my first fulltime job the office assistant wanted to shake my hand close to the coathangers so I handed her my backpack.
Lmao that's amazing. If I were that person I'd had found it funny. Hopefully it's not too embarrassing a memory for you!
It's been well digested by now it's a fun memory since it was for 6 months then moved on. Years ago.
If any are, I bet crows are among them.
I doubt most other animals experience embarrassment like we do.