Human memory may show sensitivity to content that carried fitness-relevance throughout evolutionary history. We investigated whether biases in human food spatial memory exist and influence the eating behavior of individuals within the modern food environment. In two lab studies with distinct samples of 88 participants, individuals had to re-locate foods on a map in a computer-based spatial memory task using visual (Study 1) or olfactory (Study 2) cues that signaled sweet and savory high- and low-calorie foods. Individuals consistently displayed an enhanced memory for locations of high-calorie and savory-tasting foods - regardless of hedonic evaluations, personal experiences with foods, or the time taken to encode food locations. However, we did not find any clear effects of the high-calorie or savory-taste bias in food spatial memory on eating behavior. Findings highlight that content matters deeply for the faculty of human food spatial memory and indicate an implicit cognitive system presumably attuned to ancestral priorities of optimal foraging.

中文翻译：

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在现代环境中觅食：人类食物空间记忆中的高热量和咸味偏见

人类的记忆可能对在整个进化历史中具有适应性的内容表现出敏感性。我们调查了人类食物空间记忆中的偏见是否存在并影响现代食物环境中个体的饮食行为。在包含 88 名参与者的不同样本的两项实验室研究中，个人必须在基于计算机的空间记忆任务中使用视觉（研究 1）或嗅觉（研究 2）线索重新定位地图上的食物，这些线索表明甜咸味高低热量食物。个人对高热量和美味食物的位置始终表现出增强的记忆——无论享乐评价、个人对食物的体验或对食物位置进行编码所花费的时间。然而，我们没有发现食物空间记忆中的高热量或咸味偏向对饮食行为的任何明显影响。研究结果强调，内容对人类食物空间记忆的能力非常重要，并表明内隐认知系统可能与最佳觅食的祖先优先事项相协调。