Hunger is a great motivation in that it allows organisms to explore and effectively become more flexible in their strategies during their acquisition of resources. Having an inherent knowledge and the capability to foresee their future demands may suggest a level of cognitive processing in which patterns are formed and applied through routines, whether pre-conditioned or not. In the study conducted by C. R. Raby, et al, entitled "Planning for the Future in Scrub Jays", these birds cached pine nuts in the "no- breakfast" compartments where food would not be available the following morning, and in the "breakfast" compartment where food will be available the following morning. The study was conducted to determine "forward- thinking" and to test an innate ability to assess present state of affairs in order to obtain most preferred and profitable outcome, which is, at best, expected to be positively correlated with their anticipated needs.

For the experiment, current ages of the birds should have been considered as lack of this vital data sets the stage for key inquiries such as: Is future- thinking cultivated by long term experience through repeated exposure? Or, are inexperienced juveniles capable of this as well despite the fact that "episodic- memory" has not been fully acquired nor developed? Are adults more predisposed to act on prospective thinking in the wild in terms of meeting anticipated demands as this behavior well exhibits parental responsibility? Or is it ultimately just natural selection working at its best under the subjective approach that individuals will engage in selfish behavior and act based on current state to maximize their own chances at survival?

This study suggests that these birds have the capacity to plan for the future by way of storing short- term memory, which explains why they cached food the night before, using retrospection as paradigm to recognize an impending condition in order to keep pace with basic needs. However, this study was experimental, not observational; these birds were presented with food under several controls. In nature, organisms typically face the challenge of uncertainty and the potential unavailability of food sources; under these circumstances, they may forego a passive approach of taking each day as a single event, and instead, opt to gather cacheable foods each time the opportunity arises and not only when it is sensed that "breakfast will not be served the following morning". One can argue, with emphasis on past exposures, that these birds are not acting on future anticipation of shortages, but rather, under the cost- benefit notion that food accumulation decreases further risks of exposure to predators, allowing conservation of otherwise expended energy from actively searching for food. This can be accredited to their use of retrospection, which renders it possible for these birds to assess their current state, but it may be overly ambitious to declare an ability for these birds to "forward think"; in other words, they may have a keen awareness of, and the faculty to retain, consequential events that have become familiar through repetitious experiences, but stopping short of complex attributes such that they still lack the faculty to accommodate their future wants and needs by way of strategic planning without reference to, or capitalizing on, use of precedents or points of comparison. One impediment in partaking in daily routine are sudden changes in weather; rainy seasons may force an organism to be immobile in their search for food even for a short period of time. Foreseeable events such as a change in season may be comparable to the conditions of the experiment in the sense that it may initiate "forward thinking" that may stretch at least into the next day; as a result, they may choose the take- all- you- can approach, driven by their attuned awareness that the prospect to cache foods may be sparse at times, thus evoking the act of eating- while -caching behavior; again, one can argue that this behavior demonstrates, solely, an ability to recognize pattern through past experience, with natural selection's particular prompting for individuals to engage in selfish acts, and most likely not a competence to forward think or plan for the future.

Study result showed these scrub jays stored significantly more pine nuts in the caching tray placed in the "no breakfast" compartment than they did in the "breakfast" compartment, endorsing the suggested ability to "forward think" in these birds. Moreover, these birds also opted to store pine nuts, albeit in less quantity, in the area where breakfast will be available. This redundant act does not hold a strong argument for an ability to plan ahead into the future with regards to availability of their next meal; this may be in reference to their past training, with their capacity for short term memory, which acquaints these birds with the emergence of a pattern suggesting this may be a temporary ration, ergo must be indulged by both eating and caching! Excess amounts of food are then consequently set aside for the reason that they "bite more than they can chew", not specifically for reason of coherently "saving for a rainy day". It may suggest that just like other animals, they tend to be exploitative whenever the opportunity arises. However, the claim for "planning for the future" by "saving or putting away food" triggered by their awareness of an impending crisis or shortage MAY be open to question; this exploitability to cache food could be induced as a natural way to satisfy an innate inclination to over- indulge out of greed, ravenousness, egocentrism, or simply from having an insatiable appetite. Consequently, this hoarding allows for leftovers to remain to be eaten at a later time.

The idea that scrub jays are able to forward- think and plan for the future could be too ambitious. Although, as it is conceivable to assume this phenomenon of saving for later indulgence or planning is induced by such complexity in the brain, according these birds their due credence for this and any more complex activity they can potentially exhibit, it could also be conceivable to assume that they merely tend to over-estimate, and characteristically being greedy little suckers, these birds lavish themselves with extra, and that is all it is...measely leftovers!