Some evidence of a female advantage in object location memory using ecologically valid stimuli

A female advantage in object recall is assumed to derive from an adaptation to gathering/foraging. Support for the Gathering Hypothesis has relied upon stimuli and methodologies that lack ecological validity. We report two studies in which object recognition and object location memory were addressed...

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Published inHuman nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 146 - 163
Main Authors Neave, Nick, Hamilton, Colin, Hutton, Lee, Tildesley, Nicola, Pickering, Anne T
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Springer Nature B.V 01.06.2005
Subjects
Females
Gathering hypothesis
Sex differences
Division of labor model
Location memory
Object memory
Spatial memory
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Summary:A female advantage in object recall is assumed to derive from an adaptation to gathering/foraging. Support for the Gathering Hypothesis has relied upon stimuli and methodologies that lack ecological validity. We report two studies in which object recognition and object location memory were addressed using real plants within naturalistic arrays. In the first, females were significantly quicker than males at finding specific plants in some small arrays, and they made significantly fewer mistakes in a larger array. Next, females also located plants in a large and complex array significantly faster than males. We thus find some support for the Gathering Hypothesis using ecologically valid methods.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
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ISSN:1045-6767
1936-4776
DOI:10.1007/s12110-005-1001-8