Donald H. McBurney

Superior spatial memory of women: Stronger evidence for the gathering hypothesis

Abstract Male and female college students played the commercial game Memory TM , which required them to recall the location of previously viewed items, and also completed a 20-item mental rotation task. As is typical, males performed better than females ( d = .67) on the mental rotation task. In contrast, females outperformed males by a large margin ( d = −.89) on the memory task. Performance on the two tasks was correlated for females, but not for males. The reversal of sex differences between tasks suggests that spatial ability is not a unitary trait and that different kinds of spatial processing may have been important for males and females in the EEA (environment of evolutionary adoptedness). The Memory TM game appears to mimic the cognitive demands of foraging better than previous spatial memory tasks.

Matrilateral biases in the investment of aunts and uncles : A consequence and measure of paternity uncertainty.

In a study of the kin investment of aunts and uncles we show that the laterality effect expected as a result of paternity uncertainty is statistically reliable but somewhat smaller than the sex effect. Matrilateral aunts invest significantly more than patrilateral aunts, and the same is true for uncles. Regardless of laterality, however, aunts invest significantly more than uncles. Multivariate controls show that the matrilateral bias is fully independent of any age or distance confounds that might result from sex differences in age at marriage or dispersal. We discuss our results in relation to recent findings on the kin investment of grandparents (Euler and Weitzel 1996). In addition, we propose a simple method for estimating the level of paternity uncertainty from kin investment data; application of this method to our data on aunts and uncles suggests that between 13% and 20% of children are not the offspring of their putative father. Our parallel analyses of Euler and Weitzel’s (1996) data on grandparental investment suggest a similar estimate, that paternity uncertainty lies between 9% and 17%.

Waist–hip ratio and attractiveness: New evidence and a critique of “a critical test”

Abstract An evolutionary model of mate choice predicts that humans should prefer honest signals of health, youth, and fertility in potential mates. Singh and others have amassed substantial evidence that the waist–hip ratio (WHR) in women is an accurate indicator of these attributes, and proposed that men respond to WHR as an attractiveness cue. In response to a recent study by Tassinary and Hansen [Psychol. Sci. 9 (1998) 150.] that purports to disconfirm Singhs hypothesis, we present evidence showing a clear relationship between WHR and evaluations of attractiveness. We evaluated responses to a range of waist, hip, and chest sizes, spanning the 1st through 99th percentiles of anthropometric data. Waist, hip, and chest sizes were altered independently to give WHRs of 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.9, and 1.2. We replaced line drawings with more realistic computer-manipulated photographs. The preferred WHR was 0.7, concordant with the majority of previous results. By asking participants to estimate weight in each stimulus figure, we were able to statistically control for the effects of weight on attractiveness judgments; the effect of WHR remained.

The dissolution of language in Pick's disease with neurofibrillary tangles: A case study

This paper is a detailed retrospective history of a patient who began to have difficulty with speaking and comprehension in 1967, and whose neuropathological examination at time of death 12 1/2 years later was consistent with a diagnosis of Picks disease, complicated by neurofibrillary tangles. It follows the deteriorating course of his language abilities in the context of relatively less-impaired general cognitive abilities, using two sources of information. The first is his own written record of his deteriorating abilities, shown in letters and notes he wrote over this period. The second is through an oral history obtained from the patients family. The purpose of this report is to illustrate in detail the course of a degenerative condition and to suggest the utility of such descriptional records in increasing understanding of language deterioration in dementia.

Interactions between stimuli with different taste qualities

Abstract Adaptation effects were examined between all possible pairs of the following substances: water, NaCl, urea, citric acid, caffeine, and sucrose. Each substance was used both as an adapting solution and as a test stimulus. Adaptation to a stimulus of one quality affects the taste of other stimuli through the addition of a water taste to the usual taste of the second stimulus, rather than by enhancement of the response to the second stimulus, per se, as had previously been thought. That is, water becomes a taste stimulus when it is presented following various adaptation conditions. The taste of the water solvent in the second stimulus adds to the normal taste of the solute in that stimulus. No evidence was found for true interactions among different taste qualities.

Matrilateral biases in the investment of aunts and uncles

Gaulin, McBurney, and Brakeman-Wartell (1997) found that college students reported both matrilateral and sex biases in the investment of aunts and uncles (aunts invested more than uncles). They interpreted the matrilateral bias as a consequence of paternity uncertainty. We replicated that study with Orthodox Jewish college students, selected because they come from a population we presume to have higher paternity certainty than the general population. The Orthodox sample also showed matrilateral and sex biases. Comparing the two data sets, the Orthodox sample reported more investment, and slightly less matrilateral and sex biases, but the differences were not statistically significant. We did find an interaction between sex of relative and group membership, resulting from greater investment by Orthodox uncles. We interpret the results as reflecting the operation of a facultative investment mechanism whose upper limit is tuned to the maximum levels of paternity certainty found in ancestral environments. Lack of a difference in matrilateral bias between groups may result from levels of paternity certainty near to, or above, that maximum in both groups.

Temperature dependence of human taste responses

Abstract Human taste thresholds for NaCl, HCl, Dulcin and QSO4 were determined at 17, 22, 27, 32, 37, and 42°C using the psychophysical method of forced choice. The thresholds for all four compounds were lowest between 22° and 32° and rose above and below this temperature range. The results favored a physical-chemical basis for the transduction process over an enzymatic explanation. The effect of temperature on the intensity of suprathreshold solutions of QHCl was tested by varying the adapting and stimulus temperatures of solutions presented to one side of the tongue in a matching procedure with a standard on the other side. The temperature effect was found to be independent of the adapting temperature and the standard concentration, and to depend only on the stimulus temperature.

Taste and water taste of twenty-six compounds for man

Taste profiles were obtained for 26 compounds after adaptation to distilled water and also for water after adaptation to each of the 26 compounds. Each of the four “basic tastes” was induced in water by adaptation to certain of the compounds. Compounds having similar tastes did not necessarily have similar water tastes. The results imply a peripheral locus of the water taste mechanism(s).

Time course of gustatory adaptation

Subjects rated the taste of solution-soaked filter paper over time. Adaptation was complete for all compounds at most concentrations. The course was exponential and the same for all conditions. Adaptation was not the result of stimulus loss. The filter-paper technique allows a greater stability of stimulus than other techniques, hence complete adaptation.

Gustatory cross adaptation between sweet-tasting compounds

Taste profiles were obtained for 16 compounds after adaptation to sucrose, saccharin, and water. Sucrose adaptation reduced the sweetness of all sweet compounds. Saccharin adaptation, when analyzed over all compounds, also reduced sweetness, but the effect was less than that of sucrose. It is concluded that there may be a single receptor mechanism for the sweet quality. Adaptation to sucrose also increased the saltiness, sourness, and bitterness of the other compounds slightly. This increase should be attributed to the taste : induced in water by adaptation to sucrose rather than a potentiation of the other compounds per se.