Psychology & Sociology, School of Arts, Social Sciences and Management, Queen Margaret University, Queen Margaret University Drive, Musselburgh, East Lothian, EH21 6UU, Scotland, UK.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2011 Aug;18(4):781-6. doi: 10.3758/s13423-011-0102-0.
A pelmanism (matched-pairs) game was used in order to test the hypothesis that survival-relevant stimuli that are likely to have been present during human evolution (e.g., a snake in attack position) enjoy a memory advantage over other survival-relevant (but “modern”) stimuli (e.g., a threatening image of a gunman). Survival-relevant stimuli were matched for arousal and presented in one of two 5 x 4 grids, along with filler items. Participants were asked to match the pairs in the grids by clicking on successive squares to reveal stimuli. Participants made significantly fewer errors when matching evolutionarily relevant survival stimuli than when matching the other stimuli. Additionally, on incorrect trials, the attempted matches were significantly closer to the actual locations of evolutionarily relevant targets than to those of other stimuli. The results suggest that objects that likely posed a consistent threat throughout human evolutionary history are better remembered than other, equally arousing and survival-relevant, stimuli. [corrected]
采用配对联想学习测验来检验以下假设，即与人类进化过程中可能出现的生存相关刺激（例如，处于攻击状态的蛇）相比，其他生存相关（但“现代”）刺激（例如，持枪威胁者的图像）具有记忆优势。将具有生存相关意义的刺激与唤醒水平相匹配，并在两个 5x4 网格之一中与填充项一起呈现。参与者被要求通过点击连续的方块来匹配网格中的配对，以揭示刺激。当匹配与进化相关的生存刺激时，参与者的错误明显少于匹配其他刺激时的错误。此外，在错误的试验中，尝试的匹配与进化相关目标的实际位置比其他刺激的实际位置更接近。研究结果表明，在人类进化历史中可能一直构成持续威胁的物体比其他同等刺激且具有生存相关意义的刺激更容易被记住。
