Spatial cognition is a biological trait. Over hundreds of millions of years, it has evolved from its beginnings in marine chemosensation to its present role as a scaffold for brain and cognitive evolution.
Our work synthesizes concepts from ecology, animal behavior, cognitive science and neuroscience in order to understand the evolution of universal cognitive traits, such as spatial memory and navigation.
How did brains evolve? I have proposed that brains evolved in response to the problem of mapping space using smells, using a parallel map architecture (Jacobs, 2012). This work built on my insights from studying hippocampal evolution (parallel map theory; Jacobs & Schenk, 2003). Currently I am developing the PROUST (perceiving and recalling odor utility in space and time) hypothesis: a thesis to explain how the two major olfactory systems radiated in response to the conflict between olfaction and respiration in terrestrial vertebrates (Jacobs, in prep).
We have also studied behavior in the flesh - specifically, the wild squirrels on the Berkeley campus. Our behavioral economic analyses of squirrel foraging - their eat or cache decisions, the creation of annual cache maps - serves as a paradigm to understand memory and decision processes in semi-natural habitats, e.g., an introduced squirrel species living in an urban park. We are currently funded by the Army Research Office in a 5-year MURI grant with engineers, neuroscientists and mathematicians to model the development and expression of cognition and decision processes in squirrels, to inform the blue sky goal of creating the world’s first robotic squirrel.
Bratman, G. N., Bembibre, C., Daily, G. C., Doty, R. L., Hummel, T., Jacobs, L. F., KahnJr., P. H., Lashus, C., Majid, A., Miller, J. D., Oleszkiewicz, A., Olvera-Alvarez, H., Parma, V., Riederer, A. M., Sieber, N. L., Williams, J., Xiao, J., Yu, C.-P., & Spengler, J. D. (2024). Nature and human well-being: The olfactory pathway. Science Advances, 10(20), eadn3028. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn3028
Chauhan, M. S., Chauhan, A., Bayen, M., Wu, F., Althukair, F. A., Kaiser, M. T., & Jacobs, L. F. (2024). eNut: A sensing system to measure the acquisition of foraging proficiency in wild tree squirrels. IEEE Sensors Journal, 24(19), 30930–30946. https://doi.org/10.1109/jsen.2024.3435834
Jacobs LF (2023) The PROUST hypothesis: the embodiment of olfactory cognition. Animal Cognition 26:59–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-022-01734-1. 25th Anniversary Issue.
Robin AN, Jacobs LF (2022) The socioeconomics of food hoarding in wild squirrels. Current Opinion Behavioral Science 45:101139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2022.101139 Special issue on cognition in the wild, Ed. Alexandra Rosati.
Jacobs LF (2022) How the evolution of air breathing shaped hippocampal function. Philosophical Transactions Royal Soc B 377:20200532. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020Special issue on evolution and neuroscience, Ed. Paul Cisek.
Hunt NH, Jinn J, Jacobs LF, Full RJ (2021) Acrobatic squirrels learn to leap and land on tree branches without falling. Science 373:697–700. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abe5753
Jinn J, Connor EG, Jacobs LF (2020) How ambient environment influences olfactory orientation in search and rescue dogs. Chemical Senses 45:625–634. https://doi.org/10.1093/chemse/bjaa060
Jacobs LF (2019) The navigational nose: a new hypothesis for the function of the human external pyramid. Journal of Experimental Biology 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.186924
Delgado, M.M. and Jacobs, L.F. (2017) Caching for what and where: evidence for a mnemonic strategy in a scatter-hoarder. Royal Society Open Science. 4: 170958. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170958
Jacobs, L. F. (2012). From chemotaxis to the cognitive map: the function of olfaction. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA, 109, 10693–10700. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1201880109
Jacobs, L. F., and Schenk, Françoise. (2003). Unpacking the cognitive map: the parallel map theory of hippocampal function. Psychological Review, 110, 285-315.
The Evolution of Human Behavior (Psych 124: 2018 - 2022)
Animal Cognition (Psych 121: 2002 - 2017)
Animal Behavior (Psych 115B/Integrative Biology 144: 1993 - 2003)
