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

Neave, Nick, Hamilton, Colin, Hutton, Lee, Tildesley, Nicola and Pickering, Anne (2005) Some evidence of a female advantage in object location memory using ecologically valid stimuli. Human Nature, 16 (2). pp. 146-163. ISSN 1045-6767

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Abstract

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.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	division of labor model, gathering hypothesis, location memory, object memory, sex differences, spatial memory
Subjects:	C800 Psychology
Department:	Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User:	Becky Skoyles
Date Deposited:	02 Feb 2015 12:05
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2019 16:27
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/19837

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