Abstract
Human memory appears to be adaptively “biased” towards remembering the locations of (fitness-relevant) high-calorie nutritional resources. It remains to be investigated whether this high-calorie bias in human spatial memory influences how individuals navigate the modern food environment, and whether it is proximally associated with attentional processes. 60 individuals completed computer-based food eye-tracking and spatial memory tasks in a lab setting, as well as a food search and covert food choice task in an unfamiliar supermarket. The high-calorie spatial memory bias was replicated, as individuals more accurately recalled locations of high-calorie relative to low-calorie foods, regardless of hedonic evaluations or familiarity with foods. Although individuals were faster at (re)locating high-calorie (versus low-calorie) items in the supermarket, the bias did not predict a lower search time for high-calorie foods, or a higher proportion of high-calorie food choice. Rather, an enhanced memory for high-calorie food locations was associated with a lower perceived difficulty (i.e. greater ease) of finding high-calorie items in the supermarket, which may potentiate later choice of a high-calorie food. The high-calorie spatial memory bias was also found to be expressed independently of the amount of visual attention individuals allocated to high-calorie versus low-calorie foods. Findings further substantiate the notion that human spatial memory shows sensitivity to the caloric content of a potential resource and automatically prioritizes those with greater energy payoffs. Such a spatial mechanism that was adaptive for energy-efficient foraging within fluctuating ancestral food environments could presently yield maladaptive “obesogenic” consequences, through altering perceptions of food search convenience.
Highlights
Human memory appears to be adaptively “biased” towards remembering the locations of highcalorie nutritional resources
If human spatial memory is attuned to optimal foraging within erratic ancestral food habitats, this begs the question of what the behavioural implications of the high-calorie spatial memory bias are within a modern foraging context
An additional justification stems from research suggesting that high BMI individuals display a visual attention bias for highcalorie foods, and the magnitude of the high-calorie spatial memory bias has been previously linked to a higher BMI (Allan & Allan, 2013; Cas tellanos et al, 2009; Hendrikse et al, 2015; Werthmann et al, 2011)
Summary
Human memory appears to be adaptively “biased” towards remembering the locations of (fitness-relevant) highcalorie nutritional resources. Our present cognitive architecture is thought to harbour inbuilt mechanisms that were optimized for solving specific fitness-relevant “adaptive” problems encountered within the ancestral environments in which we evolved (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992; Tooby & Cosmides, 2005) One such cognitive mechanism that could have evolved as an adaptation for foraging within harsh ancestral food set tings is a prioritization (or bias) in human memory for the locations of high-calorie foods (Allan & Allan, 2013; New et al, 2007; de Vries et al, 2020a; de Vries et al, 2020b). We hypothesized the following outcomes: H1A: The high-calorie bias in spatial memory predicts a faster local ization of (i.e. lower search time for) high-calorie relative to low-calorie foods
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