Assessing variations in cognitive function between humans and animals is vital for understanding the idiosyncrasies of human cognition and for refining animal models of human brain function and disease. We determined memory functions deployed by mice and humans to support foraging with a search task acting as a test battery. Mice searched for food from the top of poles within an open-arena. Poles were divided into groups based on visual cues and baited according to different schedules. White and black poles were baited in alternate trials. Striped poles were never baited. The requirement of the task was to find all baits in each trial. Mice’s foraging efficiency, defined as the number of poles visited before all baits were retrieved, improved with practice. Mice learnt to avoid visiting un-baited poles across trials (Long-term memory) and revisits to poles within each trial (Working memory). Humans tested with a virtual-reality version of the task outperformed mice in foraging efficiency, working memory and exploitation of the temporal pattern of rewards across trials. Moreover, humans, but not mice, reduced the number of possible movement sequences used to search the set of poles. For these measures interspecies differences were maintained throughout three weeks of testing. By contrast, long-term-memory for never-rewarded poles was similar in mice and humans after the first week of testing. These results indicate that human cognitive functions relying upon archaic brain structures may be adequately modelled in mice. Conversely, modelling in mice fluid skills likely to have developed specifically in primates, requires caution.

评估人类和动物之间认知功能的差异对于理解人类认知的特质以及完善人类大脑功能和疾病的动物模型至关重要。我们确定了由小鼠和人类部署的记忆功能，以支持作为测试电池的搜索任务进行觅食。老鼠在露天场地内从杆子顶部寻找食物。波兰人根据视觉线索分为几组，并根据不同的时间表进行诱饵。白色和黑色的杆子在交替试验中被诱饵。条纹杆从未上过饵。任务的要求是在每次试验中找到所有诱饵。老鼠的觅食效率，定义为在取回所有诱饵之前访问过的杆数，随着练习而提高。小鼠学会了避免在试验中访问未诱饵的极点（长期记忆），并在每次试验中重新访问极点（工作记忆）。使用虚拟现实版本进行测试的人类在觅食效率、工作记忆和利用试验中奖励的时间模式方面的表现优于小鼠。此外，人类，而不是老鼠，减少了用于搜索极点集的可能运动序列的数量。对于这些措施，在整个三周的测试中保持了种间差异。相比之下，在测试的第一周后，小鼠和人类对从未获得奖励的极点的长期记忆是相似的。这些结果表明，依赖古老大脑结构的人类认知功能可以在小鼠中充分建模。反过来，