How being a parent helps to give our memories a vital boost

THINKING about your children could boost your memory, a study suggests.

Researchers believe the improvement is explained by the need to use more brain power to protect offspring.

In tests they found memory was more important in childraising than in finding a mate.

Ralph Miller, who led the study at Binghamton University, New York, said the findings were explained by evolution. ‘Our ability to think and memorise information arises from our nervous systems,’ said the psychology professor.

‘As our nervous systems are a product of evolution, one can reasonably expect that how well we memorise information today is influenced by natural selection that occurred among our ancestors long ago.’

He and his colleagues asked subjects to imagine they were living in the ancient grasslands of Africa, and to remember words such as rock, apple, ball and stick. They were asked to rate the relevance of each item to their chances of survival.

When presented with a scenario that involved raising children, they remembered many of the words. But in a task involving finding a mate, the recall rate was not so high.

The scientists said while both activities relate to survival, our ancestors may not have realised mating could result in children. Professor Miller added: ‘The specific functioning of our brains is strongly influenced by genes that were selected from among our ancestors.’

‘Grasslands of Africa’