Falsified assumptions Adaptive memory research depends on different auxiliary assumptions drawn from evolutionary psychology. One assumption is that memory will be specially tuned to remember information that is processed in a context similar to the environmental context where the adaptation took place, i.e., the African savannah or "grasslands of a foreign land". However, information that was processed for its relevance to an environment involving zombies was remembered better than information processed under the African savannah context Soderstrom NC, McCabe DP (2011) Are survival processing memory advantages based on ancestral priorities? Psychon Bull Rev 18: 564–569. and the African context condition did not differ from outer space processing. Kostic B, McFarlan CC, Cleary AM (2012) Extensions of the survival advantage in memory: Examining the role of ancestral context and implied social isolation. Psychonomic 38: 1091–1098. These experiments present a problem for the assumption of the importance of the ancestral environment because retention was better for information processed under a non-African savannah context, something not predicted by the theory of adaptive memory. A second assumption of adaptive memory research is that memory evolved because it was beneficial for survival, thus, based on a functional approach, memory should be more sensitive and retention better for information that is processed for its fitness-relevance. The assumption of fitness-relevance has been experimentally evaluated using a number of specific evolutionarily relevant scenarios designed to tap different adaptive mechanisms (or psychological adaptations), Tooby J, Cosmides L (1992) The psychological foundations of culture. In Barkow J, Cosmides L, Tooby J (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. New York: Oxford University Press for example, a mating mechanism, fear and phobia mechanism, cheater detection mechanism, etc. When words were processed with respect to these different adaptive mechanisms, there was not a processing benefit for these scenarios. This finding suggests that fitness-relevance is too amorphous of a construct to explain the mnemonic benefit found with survival processing Klein, S. B. (2013). Evolution, memory, and the role of self-referent recall in planning for the future. What is adaptive about adaptive memory and Sandry et al. suggest that research efforts should be directed at identifying the underlying mechanisms and developing a taxonomy of adaptive memory, similar to evolutionary biology.
Falsified assumptions Adaptive memory research depends on different auxiliary assumptions drawn from evolutionary psychology. One assumption is that memory will be specially tuned to remember information that is processed in a context similar to the environmental context where the adaptation took place, i.e., the African savannah or "grasslands of a foreign land". However, information that was processed for its relevance to an environment involving zombies was remembered better than information processed under the African savannah context and the African context condition did not differ from outer space processing. These experiments present a problem for the assumption of the importance of the ancestral environment because retention was better for information processed under a non-African savannah context, something not predicted by the theory of adaptive memory. A second assumption of adaptive memory research is that memory evolved because it was beneficial for survival, thus, based on a functional approach, memory should be more sensitive and retention better for information that is processed for its fitness-relevance. The assumption of fitness-relevance has been experimentally evaluated using a number of specific evolutionarily relevant scenarios designed to tap different adaptive mechanisms (or psychological adaptations), for example, a mating mechanism, fear and phobia mechanism, cheater detection mechanism, etc. When words were processed with respect to these different adaptive mechanisms, there was not a processing benefit for these scenarios. This finding suggests that fitness-relevance is too amorphous of a construct to explain the mnemonic benefit found with survival processing and Sandry et al. suggest that research efforts should be directed at identifying the underlying mechanisms and developing a taxonomy of adaptive memory, similar to evolutionary biology.
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Soderstrom NC, McCabe DP (2011) Are survival processing memory advantages based on ancestral priorities? Psychon Bull Rev 18: 564–569.
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Kostic B, McFarlan CC, Cleary AM (2012) Extensions of the survival advantage in memory: Examining the role of ancestral context and implied social isolation. Psychonomic 38: 1091–1098.
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Tooby J, Cosmides L (1992) The psychological foundations of culture. In Barkow J, Cosmides L, Tooby J (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. New York: Oxford University Press
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Klein, S. B. (2013). Evolution, memory, and the role of self-referent recall in planning for the future. What is adaptive about adaptive memory