Gist memory error

Biological Parallel

Squirrels remember general cache locations (gist) better than specific coordinates (details)—grey squirrels relocate buried food to within 5cm in 62.5% of attempts after 20 days, with overall recovery rates of 75-95% depending on conditions. Storing themes is metabolically cheaper than storing specifics, and themes predict future patterns better than exact coordinates. The brain extracts core meaning and discards surface details because gist captures transferable patterns while specifics rarely recur identically. Crows remember 'food was near the red boulder' better than exact GPS coordinates. Clark's nutcrackers cache 30,000 pine seeds annually, recovering them via spatial chunking—general area first, then precision search. Gist errors reveal memory's purpose: predict the future using the past's pattern, not replay the past verbatim.