Visual spatial memory in aboriginal and white Australian children

A research approach based on probable cognitive skills of desert Aboriginal people was derived from suggestions for research in comparative psychology made by Lockard (1971), and from contradictory reports of high Aboriginal skill in difficult environmental circumstances and inferior performance in school and on IQ tests. Aboriginal children and adolescents of both semi-traditional and non-traditional groups performed significantly better than White Australian subjects on visual spatial memory tasks requiring memory for spatial location of a kind postulated as useful in desert way-finding. This difference was seen to support a genetic hypothesis, on the assumption that non-traditional Aboriginal children were reared like White Australian children. It is now apparent that this assumption is unjustified, and that many traditional child-rearing practices are maintained by non-traditional Aboriginal people, even of the city, which may be important for the development of particular cognitive skills. The genetic hypothesis is therefore abandoned. Suggestions are made for cross-cultural research on child-rearing and its cognitive effects in both Aboriginal and White Australian groups.