Spatial Memory and Foraging: How Perfect Spatial Memory Improves Foraging Performance

Foraging is a search process common to all mobile organisms. Spatial memory can improve foraging efficiency and efficacy, and evidence indicates that many species—including humans—actively utilize spatial memory to aid in their foraging, yet most current models of foraging do not include spatial memory. In this study, a simple online foraging game was used to attempt to replicate and extend findings from a recent study (Kerster, Rhodes, & Kello, 2016) to further investigate the role of spatial memory in foraging. The game involved searching a simple 2d space by clicking the mouse to try and find as many resources as possible in 300 clicks. Spatial information was displayed that provided complete information about search history in order test how “perfect” spatial memory improves search performance. Over 1000 participants were recruited to participate in the task using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, which allowed this test to be performed across a wide parameter space of different resource distributions. Results replicated many of the findings of earlier studies, and demonstrated that spatial memory can have a dramatic effect on search performance.