Animates engender robust memory representations in adults and young children

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104284

Cognition

Volume 201, August 2020, 104284

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104284 Get rights and content

Abstract

The animate monitoring hypothesis proposes that humans are predisposed to attend preferentially to animate entities in the environment (New, Cosmides, & Tooby, 2007). However, there have to date been no developmental investigations of animate monitoring in younger populations, despite the relevance of such evidence to this hypothesis. Here we demonstrate that adults and preschoolers recall a novel sequence of action with greater fidelity if it involves an animate over an inanimate. Experiments 1 (adults) and 2 (preschoolers) provide initial support for this phenomena, when a familiar animate (a dog) is used in the sequence instead of a block. Experiment 2 also revealed that a beetle is not clearly superior to a block, hinting at a possible hierarchy of animacy. Experiment 3 provided the clearest evidence for this memory advantage in preschoolers, when a novel animate that was perceptually identical to two other inanimate controls enhanced memory for the sequence. These results indicate that animate monitoring does not require extensive experience to develop, and could possibly be the result of innate dispositions.

Section snippets

Animates engender robust memory representations in adults and young children

In modern Western society humans spend the majority of their time surrounded by fellow humans. From household to household there is variability in the amount of exposure westerners have to other animals, depending on the number and type of pets in the home. But in prehistoric times human exposure to other animals was vastly greater. Although the social nature of humanity necessitates a high degree of contact with conspecifics, we evolved embedded in diverse ecosystems, one animal among many.

Experiment 1

In Experiment 1 we tested whether adults recall an action sequence better if it involves a representation of an animate entity than if it involves an inanimate entity. We chose to examine their incidental memory for the event, by exposing them to the sequence without telling them that they would be asked to perform (recall) the sequence later. We hypothesized that adults would have better incidental memory for the event involving the animate in comparison to the one without.

Experiment 2

In Experiment 2 we investigated whether 4- and 5-year-old children also recall action sequences involving an animate representation with greater accuracy than a sequence involving an inanimate representation. We utilized the same dog and block conditions from Experiment 1, and also added a beetle condition, in order to compare two types of animates. Our reasoning here was that the beetle may not serve as well as the dog as a representation of an animate in young children's minds (and

Experiment 3

The main goal of Experiment 3 was to demonstrate that it is the animate status of an entity per se that engenders increased attention and stronger encoding, and not its perceptual features. To this end, we created a single block construct that was used in all conditions, and what differed was only what children were told about what this construct represented. In the animate condition children were told that the construct represented a novel marine animal that locomotes, similar to a crab or sea

General discussion

Animals need to pay close attention to other animals in their environment, regardless of whether they are predators or prey, and humans are but one animal among many whose livelihood depended upon this ability. While previous research has shown that adult humans display heightened attention to animates relative to inanimates (Calvillo & Jackson, 2014; Jackson & Calvillo, 2013; New et al., 2007; Pratt et al., 2010; Scholl & Gao, 2013; Yang et al., 2012) and better memory for animates over

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Jeff Loucks:Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.Kaitlyn Verrett:Project administration, Writing - review & editing.Berit Reise:Project administration, Writing - review & editing.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a Discovery grant from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Discovery grant, 05455, awarded to the first author. We are thankful to Jaspreet Singh for collecting the data for Experiment 1. We are especially grateful to all of the families in the Regina area who volunteered to participate. This research could not have happened without your generosity.

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A processing advantage in favor of animate entities in incidental word learning in young children
2024, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Because of their evolutionary importance, it has been proposed that animate entities would be better remembered than inanimate entities. Although a growing body of evidence supports this hypothesis, it is still unclear whether the animacy effect persists under incidental learning conditions. Furthermore, few studies have tested the robustness of this effect in young children, with conflicting results. Using an incidental learning paradigm, we investigated whether young children (4- and 5-year-olds) would be better at learning words that refer to either human or animal entities rather than vehicle entities using pictures as stimuli. A sample of 79 children were asked to play digital Memory games while associations between pictures and words were presented incidentally. Consistent with the adaptive view of memory, the results showed that words associated with human and animal entities were better learned incidentally than words associated with vehicle entities. The visual complexity of the pictures did not influence this animacy effect. In addition, the more exposure to the pictures, the more incidental learning occurred. Overall, the results confirm the robustness of the animacy effect and show that this processing advantage can be found in an incidental learning task in children as young as 4 or 5 years. Furthermore, it is the first study to show that this effect can be obtained with pictures in children. The demonstration of the animacy effect with pictures, and not just words, is a prerequisite for an ultimate explanation of this effect in terms of survival.
Animate monitoring is not uniform: implications for the animate monitoring hypothesis
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Animates engender robust memory representations in adults and young children

Abstract

Section snippets

Animates engender robust memory representations in adults and young children

Experiment 1

Experiment 2

Experiment 3

General discussion

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Acknowledgements

Cognitive Psychology

Cognition

Cognitive Psychology

Cognition

Cognition

Cognition

What insects can tell us about the origins of consciousness

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Infants’ perception of goal-directed actions: Development through cue-based bootstrapping

Developmental Science

Animates are better remembered than inanimates: Further evidence from word and picture stimuli

Memory & Cognition; New York

Animate objects are detected more frequently than inanimate objects in inattentional blindness tasks independently of threat

The Journal of General Psychology

Animacy, perceptual load, and inattentional blindness

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

Conceptual change in childhood

Evidence for a mnemonic benefit of animate-object interaction: Enhanced retention from animate contact

Action experience changes attention to kinematic cues

Frontiers in Psychology

The wolfpack effect: Perception of animacy irresistibly influences interactive behavior

Psychological Science

Children’s causal explanations of animate and inanimate motion

Child Development

Learning from their own actions: The unique effect of producing actions on infants’ action understanding

Child Development

Animacy increases second target reporting in a rapid serial visual presentation task

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

The change detection advantage for animals: An effect of ancestral priorities or progeny of experimental design?

I-Perception

Animals do not induce or reduce attentional blinking, but they are reported more accurately in a rapid serial visual presentation task

I-Perception

An experimental study of apparent behavior

The American Journal of Psychology