are better at timeeplace learning than are animals that
feed from resources that are constant in time or are available only
once. It might also mean that experience of timeeplace learning
through an animal's normal foraging routine leads to that animal
learning a timeeplace task more readily than does an animal that
has not had that experience. Dissociating these two explanations
will not be easy, not least because in the laboratory, where animals
are maintained under constant light and dark conditions, phaseshift
tests (where the external cue used to switch on the interval
timer is either advanced or delayed) are used to exclude or to
confirm the role and mechanistic basis of any timing ability the
animal may show. In the field, such tests are not possible