Memory for medicinal plants remains in ancient and modern environments suggesting an evolved adaptedness

Adaptive memory is the propensity of human memory to easily store and retrieve important information to deal with challenges related to the Pleistocene. Recent evidence shows that humans have had a multiregional evolution across the African continent, including the rainforests and deciduous forests;...

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Autores principales:	Joelson Moreno Brito Moura, Risoneide Henriques da Silva, Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior, Taline Cristina da Silva, Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/4192d11f337b4310845e1af96b6edabb
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:4192d11f337b4310845e1af96b6edabb2021-11-04T06:09:17ZMemory for medicinal plants remains in ancient and modern environments suggesting an evolved adaptedness1932-6203https://doaj.org/article/4192d11f337b4310845e1af96b6edabb2021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8544875/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Adaptive memory is the propensity of human memory to easily store and retrieve important information to deal with challenges related to the Pleistocene. Recent evidence shows that humans have had a multiregional evolution across the African continent, including the rainforests and deciduous forests; however, there is little evidence regarding the implications of these origins and the relevant and recurring challenges of these environments on survival processing advantage in memory. In this study, we conducted an experiment with volunteers to analyze whether adaptive memory operates in the retrieval of important information to solve challenges of using medicinal plants to treat diseases in the ancestral environments of the savanna, rainforests, and deciduous forests compared to the modern environments of desert, tundra, coniferous forest, and urban areas. We used simulated survival environments and asked volunteers (30 per simulated scenario) to imagine themselves sick in one of these environments, and needing to find medicinal plants to treat their disease. The volunteers rated the relevance of 32 words to solve this challenge, followed by a surprise memory test. Our results showed no ancestral priority in recalling relevant information, as both ancestral and modern environments showed a similar recall of relevant information. This suggests that the evolved cognitive apparatus allows human beings to survive and can create survival strategies to face challenges imposed in various environments. We believe that this is only possible if the human mind operates through a flexible cognitive mechanism. This flexibility can reflect, for example, the different environments that the first hominids inhabited and the different dangerous situations that they faced.Joelson Moreno Brito MouraRisoneide Henriques da SilvaWashington Soares Ferreira JúniorTaline Cristina da SilvaUlysses Paulino AlbuquerquePublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 10 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Joelson Moreno Brito Moura Risoneide Henriques da Silva Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior Taline Cristina da Silva Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque Memory for medicinal plants remains in ancient and modern environments suggesting an evolved adaptedness
description	Adaptive memory is the propensity of human memory to easily store and retrieve important information to deal with challenges related to the Pleistocene. Recent evidence shows that humans have had a multiregional evolution across the African continent, including the rainforests and deciduous forests; however, there is little evidence regarding the implications of these origins and the relevant and recurring challenges of these environments on survival processing advantage in memory. In this study, we conducted an experiment with volunteers to analyze whether adaptive memory operates in the retrieval of important information to solve challenges of using medicinal plants to treat diseases in the ancestral environments of the savanna, rainforests, and deciduous forests compared to the modern environments of desert, tundra, coniferous forest, and urban areas. We used simulated survival environments and asked volunteers (30 per simulated scenario) to imagine themselves sick in one of these environments, and needing to find medicinal plants to treat their disease. The volunteers rated the relevance of 32 words to solve this challenge, followed by a surprise memory test. Our results showed no ancestral priority in recalling relevant information, as both ancestral and modern environments showed a similar recall of relevant information. This suggests that the evolved cognitive apparatus allows human beings to survive and can create survival strategies to face challenges imposed in various environments. We believe that this is only possible if the human mind operates through a flexible cognitive mechanism. This flexibility can reflect, for example, the different environments that the first hominids inhabited and the different dangerous situations that they faced.
format	article
author	Joelson Moreno Brito Moura Risoneide Henriques da Silva Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior Taline Cristina da Silva Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
author_facet	Joelson Moreno Brito Moura Risoneide Henriques da Silva Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior Taline Cristina da Silva Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
author_sort	Joelson Moreno Brito Moura
title	Memory for medicinal plants remains in ancient and modern environments suggesting an evolved adaptedness
title_short	Memory for medicinal plants remains in ancient and modern environments suggesting an evolved adaptedness
title_full	Memory for medicinal plants remains in ancient and modern environments suggesting an evolved adaptedness
title_fullStr	Memory for medicinal plants remains in ancient and modern environments suggesting an evolved adaptedness
title_full_unstemmed	Memory for medicinal plants remains in ancient and modern environments suggesting an evolved adaptedness
title_sort	memory for medicinal plants remains in ancient and modern environments suggesting an evolved adaptedness
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/4192d11f337b4310845e1af96b6edabb
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_version_	1718445145536331776

Memory for medicinal plants remains in ancient and modern environments suggesting an evolved adaptedness

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