From Rats To Humans, A Brain Knows When It Can't Remember
When we see a familiar face, we know instantly if we can remember that person's name. That's because the human brain has an ability called metamemory. Looks like rats may have that higher power, too.
The human brain knows what it knows. And so, it appears, does a rat brain.
Rats have shown that they have the ability to monitor the strength of their own memories, researchers from Providence College reported this month in the journal Animal Cognition.
Brain scientists call this sort of ability metacognition. It's a concept that became famous in 2002, when then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld explained to reporters:
There are known knowns. There are things
