Adaptive Memory

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that human memory systems are "tuned" to remember information that is processed in terms of its fitness value. When people are asked to rate the relevance of words to a survival scenario, performance on subsequent surprise memory tests exceeds that obtained after most other known encoding techniques. The present experiments explored this effect using survival scenarios designed to mimic the division of labor thought to characterize early hunter-gatherer societies. It has been suggested that males and females have different cognitive specializations due to the unique survival tasks (hunting and gathering, respectively) they typically performed during periods of human evolution; the present experiments tested whether such specializations might be apparent in memory for words rated for relevance to these activities. Males and females were asked to rate the relevance of random words to prototypical hunting and gathering scenarios or to matched, non-fitness-relevant control scenarios (gathering food on a scavenger hunt or in a hunting contest). Surprise retention tests revealed superior memory for the words when they were rated for relevance to hunting and gathering scenarios, compared with when they were rated for relevance to the control scenarios, but no sex differences were found in memory performance.

The effect of animacy on metamemory

“…This is referred to as the animacy effect (see also Bonin, Gelin, & Bugaiska, 2014;VanArsdall, Nairne, Pandeirada, & Blunt, 2013;VanArsdall, Nairne, Pandeirada, & Cogdill, 2014). This finding is in line with the functionalist view of memory put forward by Nairne and his colleagues Nairne, Pandeirada, Gregory, & VanArsdall, 2009;Nairne, Pandeirada, & Thompson, 2008), which states that the human memory system has been tuned to solve critical adaptive problems. For example, Nairne, Thompson, and Pandeirada (2007) found that encoding words in a survival condition, such as rating common nouns for their survival relevance (e.g., in securing food, water, or protection from predators), as compared to several control conditions (e.g., rating words according to pleasantness), led to better long-term retention.…”

“…Given that our ancestors were primarily concerned with survival, the ability to rapidly detect and remember animates in the visual field and determine whether they were potential predators or prey would seem to be a highly advantageous skill. As argued by Nairne and coworkers (e.g., Nairne et al, 2009), the human memory system is based or tuned to remember fitness-relevant information, based essentially on findings obtained using survival processing scenarios. For instance, found that processing stimuli in terms of fitness yields better memory performance than does processing them in terms of other dimensions corresponding to well-known deep encoding conditions.…”

Does the thought of death contribute to the memory benefit of encoding with a survival scenario?

“…As anticipated, the pleasantness condition led to the lowest recall performance compared to the other three encoding conditions. In line with previous findings (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008a, 2008b, 2010aNairne et al, 2007Nairne et al, , 2008Nairne et al, , 2009), we found that survival processing led to better recall than pleasantness processing. Recall performance was lower under the survival condition than under the World-War-III and life-after-death conditions.…”

“…Thus, the advantage of survival processing in long-term encoding over all other deep encoding conditions is not always found. Here, in Study 1, we replicated the recall advantage of survival processing over the deep encoding pleasantness condition found in previous studies (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008a, 2008b, 2010aNairne et al, 2007Nairne et al, , 2008Nairne et al, , 2009). However, it has been observed that this enhanced retention due to encoding words in a survival scenario is not always found when compared with control conditions previously found to be generally less optimal, for example self-reference (see Klein, 2012).…”

“…In a series of recent studies, Nairne and colleagues (e.g., Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008a, 2008b, 2010aNairne, Pandeirada, Gregory, & Van Arsdall, 2009;Nairne, Pandeirada, & Thompson, 2008;Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada, 2007) provided evidence for the hypothesis that our current memory systems have evolved through a process of natural selection, with the result that footprints of ancestral selection pressures are still operant in healthy memory functioning. In a seminal study, Nairne et al (2007) showed that encoding lists of unrelated words within the framework of a survival scenario led to better memory performance (in unexpected free-recall tests) than other well-known (deep) encoding strategies such as self-encoding, pleasantness or imagery ratings; this has been called the survival effect (see Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008b for an overview).…”