Do Humans Possess a Superior Location Memory for Snakes?

  • Andrew Gallup SUNY Polytechnic Institute
Keywords: adaptive memory, predator-prey relations, threat detection

Abstract

Snakes have been a recurrent survival threat throughout human evolutionary history, and, as a result, these animals disproportionately induce attention and fear. Consistent with the predictions of Snake Detection Theory, a large body of literature has demonstrated that both humans and non-human primates possess visual adaptations for rapidly detecting snakes. The current research examined whether people also possess cognitive biases for remembering the locations of these dangerous animals. Three preregistered studies (N = 69), all of which used within-subjects designs with college students in the United States, were conducted to assess how the spatial recall for snakes compared to other recurrent survival threats: lions and spiders. Results show that the location memory for snakes was greater than for lions (p < .05) but equivalent to that of spiders. In addition, the findings indicate that differences in location memory across studies were driven primarily by threat rather than arousal and negative valence. Overall, these studies suggest that humans do not possess a superior location memory specific for snakes. Limitations to the current research and suggestions for future work in this area are discussed.

Published
2022-07-01
Section
Original Articles