Do animals care about the past?

“What separates humans from animals, is an interest in the past”. That’s a 900-year-old quote from a textbook that Nigerian listener Taiwo came across, and he wrote to CrowdScience to ask if modern science would agree.

Most of us spend time thinking about the past, whether it is nostalgia for a bygone age or just wondering where we put the house keys yesterday. But is that just a human activity or do other animals also ruminate on their history and use it to make decisions? Taiwo wants to know if there is any evidence to show that animals have an interest in the past and if it matters to them.

Presenter Caroline Steel has a history of answering questions like this, so she sets out to find an answer. She meets researchers who have found evidence that animals not only remember past events, but use their memory for planning.

She talks to neuroscientist Dr Freyja Olafsdottir and discovers that some animals, including rats and mice, have the same brain structure for memory as humans.

She meets baby magpies in Professor Nicola Clayton’s laboratory in the UK and finds out about some of the very smart tactics jays use to hide their food from rivals, evidence that they’re using their memory to protect their interests.

She talks to psychologist Dr Gema Martin-Ordas whose research has shown that chimpanzees not only remember past events, but use what they’ve learnt in the future.

And she tests the memory of her own cat Oli, wondering if his ability to remember dinner time suggests that he is interested in the past too.

Ultimately it comes down to questions of consciousness, so as Caroline grapples with the idea that we can’t even be certain that other humans are genuinely conscious, what hope do we have of finding an answer for Taiwo?

Presenter: Caroline Steel

Producer: Jo Glanville

Editor: Ben Motley

(Photo: Cute clever cat with glasses reading a book. The cat lies on a stack of old books on a blue background. Credit:vvvita/Getty Images)