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Episodic-like memory in a simulation of cuttlefish behavior

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Abstract

Episodic memory involves remembering the what, when, and where components of an event. It has been observed in humans, other vertebrates, and the invertebrate cuttlefish. 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 cuttlefish 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 cuttlefish 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 be an example of convergent cognitive evolution.

Data availability

The source code for these simulations is written in Python and publicly available at: https://github.com/jkrichma/EpisodicLikeMemoryModel.git

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank members of the CuttleBot team for many valuable discussions. The authors would also like to thank Professor Nicola Clayton for valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Funding

The CuttleBot team was supported by the UC Irvine California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CALIT2) in collaboration with the UC Irvine Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). J.K. was supported in part by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke award R01 NS135850-02.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697-5100, USA

    Sriskandha Kandimalla, Qian Ying Wong & Jeffrey L. Krichmar

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697-7085, USA

    Kary Zheng & Jeffrey L. Krichmar

Authors

  1. Sriskandha Kandimalla
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  2. Qian Ying Wong
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  3. Kary Zheng
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  4. Jeffrey L. Krichmar
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Contributions

S.K., Q.W., and J.K. designed the experiment. Q.W., K.Z. and J.K. implemented the model. All authors analyzed the results. All authors wrote the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to
Jeffrey L. Krichmar.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Kandimalla, S., Wong, Q.Y., Zheng, K. et al. Episodic-like memory in a simulation of cuttlefish behavior.
Sci Rep (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-31950-x

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