Commentary: Should Gender Differences be Included in the Evolutionary Upgrade to Cognitive Load Theory?

Recent upgrades to cognitive load theory suggest that evolutionary processes have shaped the way that working memory processes cultural and social information. According to evolutionarily educational psychologists, some forms of information are processed with lower working memory loads than other forms. The former are evolutionarily salient and the latter historically recent and evolutionarily novel. Sex differences in evolutionary pressures have resulted in some differences in aspects of associated working memory systems that are relevant to cognitive load theory. For this reason this paper suggests that gender differences in information processing via evolutionary processes is an important consideration that should be added to current theory.