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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Main Authors: Joelson Moreno Brito Moura, Risoneide Henriques da Silva, Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior, Taline Cristina da Silva, Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Subjects:
R
Q
Online Access:https://doaj.org/article/4192d11f337b4310845e1af96b6edabb
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spelling ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:4192d11f337b4310845e1af96b6edabb 2023-05-15T18:40:34+02:00 Memory for medicinal plants remains in ancient and modern environments suggesting an evolved adaptedness Joelson Moreno Brito Moura Risoneide Henriques da Silva Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior Taline Cristina da Silva Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doaj.org/article/4192d11f337b4310845e1af96b6edabb EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8544875/?tool=EBI https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 https://doaj.org/article/4192d11f337b4310845e1af96b6edabb PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 10 (2021) Medicine R Science Q article 2021 ftdoajarticles 2022-12-31T07:58:18Z 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. Article in Journal/Newspaper Tundra Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles
institution Open Polar
collection Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles
op_collection_id ftdoajarticles
language English
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
topic_facet Medicine
R
Science
Q
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 in Journal/Newspaper
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
genre Tundra
genre_facet Tundra
op_source PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 10 (2021)
op_relation https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8544875/?tool=EBI
https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203
1932-6203
https://doaj.org/article/4192d11f337b4310845e1af96b6edabb
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