Black-Capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) Anticipate Future Outcomes of Foraging Choices Miranda C. Feeney, William A. Roberts, and David F. Sherry University of Western Ontario In 2 experiments we investigated the cognitive abilities of wild-caught black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) in future anticipation tasks. Chickadees were sensitive to anticipatory contrast effects over time horizons of 5, 10, and 30 min (Experiment 1). Chickadees also learned the order of events and anticipated that the quality of future foraging outcomes was contingent on current foraging choices. This behavior was demonstrated while foraging in a naturalistic aviary environment with a 30-min delay between the initial choice and the future outcome (Experiment 2). These results support the hypothesis that black-capped chickadees can cognitively travel in time both retrospectively and prospectively using episodic memory. This result shows the occurrence of anticipatory cognition in a noncorvid species of food-storing bird and supports the idea that cognitive time travel may have evolved in nonhuman animals in response to specific ecological selection pressures. Keywords: future anticipation, mental time travel, anticipatory contrast, food storing Within the declarative memory system, memory for personally experienced events, episodic memory, is distinguished from mem- ory for facts about the world, semantic memory (Tulving, 1972). Mental time travel (MTT) is the ability to cognitively re- experience past events or to plan for future events and depends on both episodic and semantic memory (Schacter, Addis, & Buckner, 2008; Suddendorf & Corballis, 2007). Episodic memory in hu- mans includes the property of autonoetic consciousness for per- sonally experienced past events. The fundamental distinction of episodic memory is that it allows people to remember what, where, and when events happened along with a sense of reliving the episode (Tulving, 1985, 2002). Although Tulving (1983) argued that episodic memory is a uniquely human ability, there has been debate over whether nonhuman animals have a form of episodic memory. Although autonoetic consciousness cannot be accessed in animals, a number of recent experiments suggest that some ani- mals can remember what, where, and when an event occurred. This ability has been called what-where-when (WWW) memory or episodic-like memory (Babb & Crystal, 2005; Clayton & Dickin- son, 1998; de Kort, Dickinson, & Clayton, 2005; Roberts, 2002, 2006; Roberts & Feeney, 2009; Suddendorf & Corballis, 1997, 2007; Zinkivskay, Nazir & Smulders, 2009). There has been ongoing research evaluating the episodic-like memory capabilities of nonhuman animals over the last decade (Babb & Crystal, 2005; Bird, Roberts, Abroms, Kit, & Crupi, 2003; Clayton & Dickinson, 1998, 1999b; Feeney, Roberts, & Sherry, 2009; Hampton, Hampstead, & Murray, 2005; Zinkivskay et al., 2009). More recently, theorists have begun to examine the importance of the episodic and semantic memory systems for future anticipation and planning (Atance & O’Neill, 2001; Buck- ner & Carroll, 2006; Correia, Dickinson, & Clayton, 2007; Raby, Alexis, Dickingon, & Clayton, 2007). Information stored in epi- sodic and semantic memory may be used to generate elaborate mental scenarios describing the anticipated future, suggesting that MTT is a complex, constructive ability. Suddendorf and Corballis (2007) argued that the ability to use knowledge of past experiences to adaptively plan for the future provided the primary selection pressure for the evolution of brain structures responsible for hu- man MTT. Schacter et al. (2008) subsequently advanced the con- structive episodic simulation hypothesis, proposing that episodic memory and future simulation are based on common neural pro- cesses. In nonhuman animals, Eichenbaum and Fortin (2009) demon- strated that rats can flexibly integrate memories to predict out- comes in novel situations. They argued based on neuropsycholog- ical and behavioral evidence that animals have the capacity for retrospective recollection and future prediction and that both abil- ities rely on the hippocampus in nonhuman animals, as is the case for human MTT. Although animal MTT may not be as elaborative or constructive as human MTT, the similarities in neural correlates suggest that animal MTT may be relatively complex in its own right. Raby and Clayton (2009) argued that even if animal MTT is qualitatively different from that of humans, the possibility for semantic prospection—thoughts about the future without concur- rent self-projections—is an overlooked area of research that has been hindered by a focus on human MTT. Flaherty and Checke (1982) foreshadowed the recent interest in future planning and anticipation with an examination of anticipa- tory contrast, or the suppressed intake of a lesser value food at Time 1 in favor of a higher value food at Time 2. Results showed This article was published Online First August 16, 2010. Miranda C. Feeney, William A. Roberts, and David F. Sherry, Depart- ment of Psychology, University of Western Ontario. Support for this research was provided by Discovery Grants from the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to William A. Roberts and David F. Sherry. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Miranda C. Feeney, Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5C2 Canada. E-mail: mcfeeney@uwo.ca Journal of Experimental Psychology: © 2010 American Psychological Association Animal Behavior Processes 2011, Vol. 37, No. 1, 30 – 40 0097-7403/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0019908 30