Episodic-Like Memory in a Simulation of Cuttlefish Behavior

Episodic memory involves remembering the what, when, and where components of an event. It has been observed in humans, other vertebrates, and cephalopods. In clever behavioral experiments, cuttlefish have been shown to have episodic-like memory, where they demonstrate the ability to remember when and where a preferred food source will appear. The present work replicates this behavior with a parsimonious model of episodic memory. To further test this model and explore episodic-like memory, we introduce a predator-prey scenario in which the agent must remember what creatures (e.g. predator, desirable prey, or less desirable prey) appear at a given time and region of the model environment. This simulates similar situations that cephalopods face in the wild. They will typically hide when predators are in the area, and hunt for prey when available. When the memory model is queried for an action (e.g., hunt or hide), the cuttlefish agent hunts for preferred food, like shrimp, when available, and hides at other times when a predator appears. When the memory model is queried for a place, the cuttlefish agent acts opportunistically, seeking less-preferred food (e.g., crabs) if it is located farther from a predator. These differences show how behavior can be altered depending on how memory is accessed. Querying the model over time might mimic mental time travel, a hallmark of episodic memory. Although developed with cephalopods in mind, the model shares similarities with the hippocampal indexing theory and captures aspects of vertebrate episodic memory. This suggests that the underlying mechanisms supporting episodic-like behavior in the present model may not be unique to cephalopods.