Abstract
It is well documented that people are less interested in studying plants than animals. We tested whether university students would selectively recall more animal images than plant images even when equally-nameable plant and animal images were presented for equal lengths of time. Animal and plant images were pre-tested and 14 animal-plant pairs were selected, based on student ability to equally name the images. These images were randomly presented to two groups of university students: those currently enrolled in a psychology class and those currently enrolled in a botany class. Student recall of each image was recorded after a distracting task. The results confirmed that the animal images were recalled significantly more than the plant images. There was no apparent effect of attending a botany class on these results. However, gender effects were identified for recall of plant versus animal images in general (women recalled more plants than men) and for four specific plant images (carnation, rose, daisy, and venus fly trap). When teaching biology, teachers should present equal numbers of plant and animal examples and use the most memorable plant images possible to attempt to offset student selective attention to animals.
Highlights
We are excited to join the authors of this special issue of Plants, People, Planet in highlighting how connections with plants foster a greater appreciation of the flora in our lives
Plant blindness as a metaphor first appeared in the literature in 1999: “Those persons afflicted with the condition known as plant blindness exhibit symptoms such as the following: (a) thinking that plants are merely the backdrop for animal life; (b) failing to see, no‐ tice or focus attention on plants in one's daily life; (c) misunderstand‐ ing what plants need to stay alive; (d) overlooking the importance of plants to one's daily affairs” (Wandersee & Schussler, 1999)
The term plant blindness does not refer to people's inability to visually see plants; it is referring to an inability to distinguish among plant species or appreciate their value (Schussler & Olzak, 2008; Wandersee & Schussler, 1999, 2001)
Summary
We are excited to join the authors of this special issue of Plants, People, Planet in highlighting how connections with plants foster a greater appreciation of the flora in our lives. Com), a project that fosters and shares stories about plants that have shaped people's lives. Plant Love Stories can be written and submitted by anyone.
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