Visual memory skills of Western Desert and Queensland children of Australian aboriginal descent: A reply to drinkwater

Abstract

Abstract Drink water's (1976) replication and variation of an earlier study by Kearins (1974) is discussed. In the original study arising from an environmental pressures hypothesis specifically related to desert people, and employing experimental tasks derived from postulated cognitive survival requirements of a desert world, Australian Aboriginal children of desert origin demonstrated visual spatial memory ability significantly superior to that of a white comparison group. In Drink water's study subjects were not desert children, but offshore island children of mixed origin; the relevance of the desert hypothesis of Kearins study to such a group is questioned. Nevertheless the relatively good performances of these children (equivalent to those of a white comparison group, an unusual finding in Aboriginal cognitive studies) may indicate that visual spatial skill may not be confined to groups of desert origin. The wider genetic relevance of this possibility is discussed.