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Type of Document Dissertation Author Baker, Jr., Michael Drew Author's Email Address baker@psy.fsu.edu URN etd-07202010-174602 Title Mating Cues and Declarative Memory: Signaling the Presence of Desirable Mental Skills Degree Doctor of Philosophy Department Psychology, Department of Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Jon Maner Committee Chair Ashby Plant Committee Member Colleen Kelley Committee Member Michael Kaschak Committee Member Frank Marlowe University Representative Keywords
- Mating
- Cognition
- Sexual Selection
- Signaling
- Evolutionary Psychology
- Motivation
- Memory
Date of Defense 2010-07-02 Availability unrestricted Abstract Theories of sexual selection suggest that people often engage in motivated social signaling (i.e., strategically signaling desired characteristics to others). For example, those who are motivated to find a mate are likely to display characteristics that are desired by potential mates. Results from two preliminary studies provide evidence that mating motives lead people to display enhanced memory retrieval – a skill that could be used to broadcast the presence of desirable mental traits. In an attempt to replicate those findings, a new experiment was conducted in which mating-related concepts were primed and subsequent performance on declarative memory for images (basic recognition) and the locations in which they were displayed (associative memory) was measured. A second phase of testing measured the amount of effort exerted by participants when completing the initial memory test. Results revealed an effect in the opposite direction of that seen in the preliminary studies, such that participants who were exposed to a semantic mating prime displayed decreased memory for neutral images seen earlier in the experiment. Possible explanations for this reversal are discussed, focusing on the cognitively depleting nature of the manipulation used in the current study. Proposed future directions center on ways to design a critical test to determine the circumstances under which mating primes can improve or hurt memory performance.Files
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