A new Japanese study has found that cats match dogs in some memory tests. The study used 49 cats and different bowls of food, and the result shows that cats can recall memories of positive experiences, such as eating a delicious snack. The experiment was a test of episodic memory, or memory of past experiences that occur at a particular time and place. In the experiment, cats were led to four bowls of food, and were permitted to eat from two of them. After fifteen minutes, the bowls were replaced with empty ones, and the same cats returned to the room in search of food. Here, researchers found that the cats spent more time exploring those bowls from which they had already eaten than others. That cats were able to remember "what" and "where" information about the food bowls suggests they have episodic memory. The researcher said that both cats and dogs may have episodic memory similar to that of humans and that cats are just as smart as dogs. Still, it's unclear whether cats can experience past memories as deeply as humans do. "It's also hard to know if the cats actually remember the experience of going to that particular bowl, such as the colors and the sounds," said the researcher. The study's results may have many practical uses. A professor from Yale University said, "It opens the door to new studies examining how long cats' memories can be, and whether they also remember richer experiences in their own life as humans do."