Re: how good is a guinea pig's memory? and sense of smell?

Dear Sarah
That sounds like a well put-together experiment. Guinea pigs are mammals, 
and mammals are quite good at learning things. They have a good sense of 
smell too, but your air-freshener probably hid any scent that might have 
helped them.

It sounds as though your guinea pigs were using "short-term memory" to 
find their way around the maze. This means that they learned the way 
through in the same way that you might be able to remember a shopping 
list. I'm not surprised that they had to "re-learn" the maze the next day 
because short-term memory fades quite quickly (just think about how 
quickly you would forget the shopping list once you had come back from 
your errand). 

In the wild, many animals learn their way around their habitat so that 
they can move through it quickly(without thinking)if danger threatens. 
They do this by travelling the same route again an again,until it is 
stored in their long-term memory. One experiment I have heard about put a 
mouse in a cage with all sorts of objects - wood, stones etc. Once the 
mouse had been living in the cage for long enough, one of the objects was 
removed and the mouse was disturbed. As it ran back into its nest, the 
mouse jumped over the the place where the object had been. It had learned 
to do it, and it was quicker to do as it had learned instead of stopping 
to "think"!