Hiding and searching strategies of adult humans in a virtual and a real-space room

Adults searched for or cached three objects in nine hiding locations in a virtual room or a real-space room. In both rooms, the locations selected by participants differed systematically between searching and hiding. Specifically, participants moved farther from origin and dispersed their choices more when hiding objects than when searching for hidden objects. In addition, in both virtual and real-space rooms, prior experience in the hiding task increased the distance participants traveled from origin and the dispersion of their choices during searching. Furthermore, gender differences appeared in the virtual room but not in the real-space room. Specifically, during hiding females travelled farther from origin than males and during searching they dispersed their choices more than males. Overall, the results suggest that strategies used by adult humans for searching and caching are consistent with those seen in non-human animals and children.