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Adaptive Mating Memory: Attractiveness And Contextual Effect On The Remembering And Misremembering Of Potential Mates’ Faces, Peter Kay Chai Tay

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Research on adaptive memory demonstrates that words and objects are remembered better if they are evaluated in relation to their survival or reproductive fitness value. Using the error management theory as a framework to elucidate memory biases emerging from adaptive costs and benefits, the present research examined if memory is enhanced for faces of potential mates (i.e., opposite sex individuals) in an ancestral context when the facial attractiveness and the observer’s short-term mating motive were also considered (i.e., Adaptive mating memory). In two studies, participant read scenarios depicting survival threats, mating, or modern environment, and were told to rate a …