Collective route memories emerge through differential forgetting of navigational information in homing pigeons

Better decision-making in larger groups than smaller groups or individuals has been observed across various taxa. While this phenomenon is thought to result from the pooling of independent information in collective decision-making, an alternative mechanism is the better retention of learned information in larger groups: collective memory. We investigated the emergence of collective memory and its role in collective intelligence by training homing pigeons to navigate home in pairs and testing their retention of learned routes. In a treatment with an eight-week forgetting period between training and memory testing, pairs flew closer to their learned routes than solo-tested birds, likely through differential retention of information across pairs. However, better memory retention in pairs did not translate into better homing efficiency, perhaps because the forgetting period was too short to generate a sufficient drop in efficiency. A second treatment demonstrated that extra training and a shorter forgetting period abolished the difference between paired and solo memory performance. These findings demonstrate that differential retention of information across group members can lead to the emergence of collective memory in animals. This has implications for a wide range of contexts in which the interplay of learning and memory shape individual and collective behaviour.