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Related Experiment Video

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Mating and Memory : Can Mating Cues Enhance Cognitive Performance?

Michael D Baker1, H Nicole Sloan1, Alexandra D Hall1

  • 1Department of Psychology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA.

Evolutionary Psychology : an International Journal of Evolutionary Approaches to Psychology and Behavior
|November 4, 2023
PubMed
Summary

Mating motives can enhance cognitive performance. Exposure to attractive faces improved men's declarative memory, suggesting evolutionary links between social cues and cognitive displays for mate attraction.

Keywords:
adaptive memorycostly signalingevolutionary psychologymatingsocial cognition

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary psychology
  • Cognitive neuroscience
  • Social cognition

Background:

  • Sexual selection and social brain hypothesis suggest cognition evolved for mate attraction.
  • Mating motives may drive individuals to display desirable mental traits.
  • Signaling cognitive abilities can increase mating success.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if mating cues enhance cognitive performance.
  • To examine the effect of attractive opposite-sex faces on declarative memory.
  • To explore the link between social processes and basic cognition.

Main Methods:

  • Two experiments exposed participants to mating cues (attractive faces).
  • Declarative memory was assessed using a story recall task.
  • Experiment 2 differentiated between memory encoding and retrieval.

Main Results:

  • Exposure to attractive faces enhanced men's declarative memory for story details.
  • Women did not show similar memory enhancements in Experiment 1.
  • Enhanced memory performance was attributed to improved retrieval, not encoding.

Conclusions:

  • Mating motives can trigger cognitive enhancements, particularly in memory retrieval.
  • Findings support evolutionary perspectives on human mating and cognition.
  • Social cues play a significant role in modulating basic cognitive functions.