Schooling, Local Knowledge and Working Memory: A Study among Three Contemporary Hunter-Gatherer Societies

Does knowledge learn in school supplements or replace the knowledge acquired through non-formal ways? The question has been addressed by several researchers, specifically researchers working with indigenous populations, who often display low scholarization levels but high levels of local environmental knowledge. Although there is no complete agreement, most researchers agree with the idea that schooling can be detrimental to the acquisition of other types of knowledge, since you can not be in two places learning two things at once. The process of substitution of one type of knowledge by the other is even more pronounced if school programs are not contextualized. Few researchers, however, have analysed whether the different strategies of knowledge acquisition make use of different cognitive strategies.

In this study, we analysed whether an individual’s level of education and level of local environmental knowledge affect, in one way or another, the memory of the person. We used data collected from three current hunter-gatherers (the Baka in the Congo Basin, the Punan in Borneo; and Tsimane 'in the Bolivian Amazon). The three societies are characterized by recent and often precarious access to schooling, but a large knowledge of their local environment. Specifically, we interviewed 94 people (24 Baka, 25 Punan, and 45 Tsimane ') among whom we collected information on 1) their level of schooling, 2) their knowledge of hunting and medicinal plants, and 3) memory, for which we asked the respondents to repeat lists of frequently used words in each of the cultures.

We had hypothesized that people who do not use the written record would have better memory (as they rely more on it), but we found that the respondents ability to remember words was not related to their level of schooling. However, we also found that the way in which people managed to remember these words was related to schooling: people who had gone to school often remembered words in the same order as they had been read to them, while those who had not gone to school, recalled more words that were related one to each other (for example, if appointed a fruit, other fruit remembered in the list).

Our results suggest that while schooling seems to favour some organization strategies (in this case, repetition) this might come at the expense of some other organization strategies (in this case, the semantic organization).

Reference

Reyes-García V, Pyhälä A, Díaz-Reviriego I, Duda R, Fernández-Llamazares Á, Gallois S, et al. (2016) Schooling, Local Knowledge and Working Memory: A Study among Three Contemporary Hunter-Gatherer Societies. PLoS ONE 11(1): e0145265. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0145265