What Is Self Reference Effect

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Memory. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2012 November one.

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PMCID: PMC3226761

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Memory for Details with Self-Referencing

Abstruse

Self-referencing benefits item memory, but little is known almost the means in which referencing the cocky affects memory for details. Experiment 1 assessed whether the furnishings of cocky-referencing operate only at the detail, or general, level or likewise heighten memory for specific visual details of objects. Participants incidentally encoded objects past making judgments in reference to the cocky, a shut other (one's mother), or a familiar other (Beak Clinton). Results indicate that referencing the self or a close other enhances both specific and general memory. Experiments 2 and 3 assessed verbal memory for source in a task that relied on distinguishing betwixt dissimilar mental operations (internal sources). Results point that self-referencing disproportionately enhances source memory, relative to atmospheric condition referencing other people, semantic, or perceptual information. Nosotros conclude that self-referencing not only enhances specific memory for both visual and exact information, simply can disproportionately improve memory for specific internal source details as well.

Keywords: retentiveness, self, noesis, source, specificity

The self-reference event, or the tendency for people to amend remember data when it has been encoded in reference to the cocky (Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977), has proven to exist a robust encoding strategy over the past thirty years. The effect has been establish under a diversity of conditions, including studies in which people are instructed to remember stimuli, like personality traits, nouns, and definitions (meet Symons & Johnson, 1997 for review), in people who suffer from balmy depression too as in healthy individuals (Derry & Kuiper, 1981), and across age groups, including children as young as five (Sui & Zhu, 2005) and older adults (Glisky & Marquine, 2009; Gutchess, Kensinger, & Schacter, 2010; Gutchess, Kensinger, Yoon, & Schacter, 2007; Mueller, Wonderlich, & Dugan, 1986). Although a few studies have failed to produce the cocky-reference issue (e.m., Bellezza & Hoyt, 1992; Keenan & Baillet, 1980; Klein & Kihlstrom, 1986; Lord, 1980), the event occurs beyond the bulk of self-referencing studies (Symons & Johnson, 1997).

Despite the number of findings showing that self-referencing can amend retentivity, little attention has been paid to understanding the mechanisms through which cocky-referencing influences memory. A number of processes contribute to memory, including familiarity, in which people may merely take a general sense of having encountered information before, as well as recollection, in which people can re-feel aspects of the original episode with access to many details, such equally what they saw or thought (Yonelinas, 2002). Research thus far on self-referencing has largely investigated the effects of self-referencing on particular, or general, memory, in which only a sense of familiarity would exist necessary to recognize whether something is new or old (e.g., was the word "outgoing" studied previously?). Notwithstanding, self-referencing also may raise recollective processes, which would be necessary to remember specific details. Finding that self-referencing enhances both general and specific memory, as found previously for negative emotional stimuli (Kensinger, Garoff-Eaton, & Schacter, 2006, 2007), would advise that the strategy is useful to improve the accurateness and richness of retentivity, particularly considering retention for full general, but non specific, information leaves people vulnerable to retentiveness errors of forgetting and fake recognition (Garoff, Slotnick, & Schacter, 2005). Self-referencing could be another way to enhance memory for details and reduce errors from overly general or inaccurate memory.

Thus far, research on self-referencing has been restricted in its ability to explore the specificity of memory due to the blazon of stimuli and tasks employed. A meta-analysis of self-reference consequence inquiry reports that approximately 80% of all studies used personality trait words (Symons & Johnson, 1997), stimuli which offer limited types of details to exist encoded. The tasks performed in most self-referencing studies crave participants to exercise a highly practiced and familiar chore: relating trait words to themselves or others, or considering semantic information about the words. The memory benefit of self-referencing may therefore outcome from the well-practiced nature of the chore and thus may not extend to nonverbal tasks. When participants are asked to read words and reference the self, there may be only a few distinct perceptual details available, such as the word's font or colour. Experience reading and speaking trains the states to focus on the conceptual meaning of words; therefore the pregnant of verbal stimuli will likely be considered more important and will be improve remembered than the visual details. In contrast, objects like tools, habiliment, electronics, and food products contain rich specific details that must be remembered or at least recognized in daily life in order to distinguish ane exemplar from another. These properties of objects also allow one to assess whether specific details have been encoded into memory that tin can distinguish 1 exemplar from another, a judgment that would not exist possible if the detail were encoded likewise by and large, at the particular level.

There is testify that objects can be tightly integrated with the concept of the self. Belk (1988, 1991) found that the self-concept may lie exterior the body and mind in how we process and stand for physical objects, like our possessions, in relation to ourselves. This extension of the self to self-relevant objects is apparent in the emphasis we place on ownership, which commencement emerges in immature toddlers (Ross, 1996). Non but do people tend to consider owned items every bit extensions of the cocky (Belk, 1988, 1991), only they also evaluate objects randomly assigned to them in a more positive light (Beggan, 1992; Belk, 1988, 1991) and as more valuable than the aforementioned objects assigned to others, a miracle referred to as the endowment outcome (Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1991). In a recent study, Cunningham, Turk, Macdonald, and Macrae (2008) plant a significant retentiveness reward for assigned endemic objects. Participants were presented with pictures of supermarket items "belonging" to themselves or to the confederate beside them. Afterward encoding these pictures, they were asked to put their items into their own shopping basket. Participants later conducted a recognition task in which they determined whether the presented objects belonged to them or to the confederate. The superior memory for items belonging to oneself over others suggests that the self-reference effect appears not only with words but as well with concrete objects and that the memory advantage extends to the cognitive processes underlying ownership. Participants' interactions with the objects by moving them had no meaning impact on retentivity. The memory advantage therefore resulted from self-referentially encoding the owned objects, which is a very robust finding given the brief presentation and categorical similarity of the objects in this study. Based on this previous written report (Cunningham, Turk, Macdonald, & Macrae, 2008), self-referential encoding appears to enhance at least general memory for both abstract concepts relevant to the self and physical objects owned by the self, although memory for specific details was not directly measured.

The present investigation probes the effects of self-referencing on general memory as well equally the level of particular and specific features encoded in these memories. If self-referencing, relative to other social and semantic encoding conditions, enhances both specific and general memory, it suggests that the strategy is a beneficial technique for encoding and retrieving authentic memories that are more detailed and elaborated. If self-referential encoding does not disproportionately increase the retrieval of accurate details in retention, relative to other atmospheric condition, it suggests that encoding in reference to the self operates only by strengthening the gist, or general thematic information, of memory. In three studies, we appraise the effects of self-referencing on retentiveness for specific details associated with visual objects likewise as source memory for exact information.

EXPERIMENT 1

Method

Participants

Participants were 32 students aged 18–25. Two additional participants were removed from analyses because they misunderstood the directions for the recognition task and responded with just ii of the iii response options. All participants were native English speakers and none reported being colorblind. Informed consent was obtained in a method approved by the Brandeis University Institutional Review Lath.

Materials

A series of 144 pairs of color photographs of familiar purchasable objects was used in this study. Each pair included 2 pictures of everyday, nonarousing objects with the same exact label, for example, two bottles of water, differing in visual detail (e.g., color, size, orientation, number, shape). All objects were shown confronting a white background (come across Figure 1). Purchasable objects were chosen in an attempt to create a realistic state of affairs in which referencing a person might be employed and beneficial to remembering object data. Insert Figure 1

Example stimuli. At encoding, objects are encoded one-third of the time by answering the question "is this an object you would buy some time in the next year?", while participants must respond this question about their mother or Bill Clinton for the remaining two thirds. At recognition, participants indicated whether each item was the aforementioned every bit a studied particular (same), like to an item in encoding (similar), or new.

Encoding Process

The study took place over the course of two days. On the first day, participants met with the experimenter and completed the encoding task in addition to some questionnaires. Following a cursory do task with photographs of animals, participants were shown 108 of the object pictures on a computer monitor. Earlier viewing each object, participants saw one of iii questions on the screen for two seconds: "is this an object you would purchase former in the next year?", "is this an object your female parent would buy sometime in the next year?", or "is this an object Nib Clinton would purchase sometime in the next year?". The choice of these targets was intended to dissimilarity the self confronting a target with whom the participants had high personal and emotional intimacy (mother) and a target with whom participants were familiar but did non know personally (Clinton). Following the question, an object was presented for 500 msec and participants were asked to answer "yes" or "no" to the question about the specific object as quickly every bit possible by a central press. To regulate encoding fourth dimension, the adjacent question and object were automatically presented chiliad msec later on each object'south presentation. Each participant viewed 36 objects in the self-referencing condition, 36 in the female parent-referencing condition, and 36 in the Bill Clinton-referencing condition.

The order of object presentation was randomized and the condition for each object was adamant through a counterbalancing scheme. Objects were divided into four lists of 36 object pairs. The aforementioned item inside each pair of objects was presented to every participant during the encoding phase but each participant was only shown three out of the four object lists during encoding. Objects from the fourth list, not shown during encoding, were presented as new items during the recognition phase. For each participant, the gild of the lists presented during the encoding and recognition phases followed one of eight counterbalancing orders, such that items were presented in different weather condition an equal number of times beyond participants.

Recognition Procedure

Participants met with the experimenter ii days (approximately 48 hours) after the first session. Participants first performed a practise task in which they adamant whether each detail was the same, similar, or new to objects studied in the practise task on Day 1. During the surprise recognition task participants were shown 54 of the same objects shown in encoding (eighteen from each encoding condition), 54 objects similar to items previously seen in encoding (the matched pair of the detail that was not shown to the participant in the initial encoding presentation), and 36 new objects (encounter Effigy i for examples). Participants saw each object for 1000 msec but the response interval was self-paced during which they pressed a key to betoken whether each object was the same, similar, or new. Participants were instructed to respond whether the object was (1) exactly the aforementioned every bit an object seen in the last job; (ii) similar to an object previously seen, simply slightly different, for example, the object could be given the same name but the details of the object (size, shape, number, etc.) differ from the original item; or (3) a completely new object. The procedure was adopted from Kensinger et al (2006; 2007). Encoding and recognition tasks were presented with E-Prime software (Psychology Software Tools, Pittsburgh, PA). Post-obit completion on the second day, participants were debriefed with the purpose of the study, informed of the hypotheses, thanked, and presented with the promised incentive for their participation.

Results and Discussion

Table 1 shows the proportion of objects given a same, like, or new response, reported as a function of correct response (same, similar, or new) and condition (cocky, mother, Bill Clinton, new). We calculated 6 memory scores for each participant to assess specific and full general retention for each of the three conditions (self, female parent, and Neb Clinton). Specific recognition scores were calculated based on the equation used in much of the emotion and memory research (Garoff, Slotnick, & Schacter, 2005; Kensinger, Garoff-Eaton, et al., 2007; Payne, Stickgold, Swanberg, & Kensinger, 2008). The specific memory score, the proportion of correct "aforementioned" responses given to the same objects, reflects accurate memory for those exact objects studied in encoding and presented again during recognition. To examine general retention, we used the equation from Payne et al. (2008), which accounts for the fact that "similar" and "same" responses are mutually exclusive. "Similar" responses were given when participants could not remember specific details of a studied object and therefore this response blazon was constrained by the number of "same" responses. The general memory score was the proportion of "like" responses given to aforementioned objects, after excluding the number of "same" responses, or specific memory. Our equation was the proportion of "similar" responses to same objects/(1 –proportion of "aforementioned" responses to same objects). Equally our master business concern in this written report was the outcome of self-and other-referencing on memory for studied (same) objects, responses to similar and new objects were of less importance and therefore not factored into the specific and general retention scores. Although a "similar" response to a like object is a correct response, nosotros cannot directly interpret whether this response classifies as specific or full general recognition; for instance, this response could bespeak that a participant remembered specific details of the exact object studied during encoding and correctly identified this similar exemplar as "similar", or this response could outcome from a feeling of familiarity with this object but no real memory of its details. Therefore, responses to similar objects were not factored into the retentivity scores. Insert Table 1.

Table i

Proportion of Same, Similar, and New Responses every bit a Function of Item Type and Condition for Experiment 1.

Response Type	"Same"	"Similar"	"New"
Cocky
Aforementioned	.62 (.03)	.27 (.02)	.xi (.01)
Similar	.14 (.02)	.46 (.02)	.40 (.02)
Mother
Same	.61 (.03)	.26 (.02)	.12 (.02)
Similar	.12 (.01)	.47 (.03)	.41 (.03)
Bill Clinton
Same	.55 (.04)	.25 (.02)	.19 (.02)
Similar	.10 (.02)	.42 (.03)	.48 (.03)
New	.04 (.01)	.21 (.02)	.76 (.02)

A ii × iii within-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to compare response accuracy by memory type (specific, full general) and condition (self, mother, Nib Clinton). Results are displayed in Figure two. The ANOVA revealed a significant main upshot of memory type, F (ane, 31) = 4.21, p < .05, partial η² = .12. Collapsing across conditions, general retention functioning (Thou = .67) was significantly better than specific memory (M = .threescore). The main effect of condition also reached significance, F (2, 62) = 4.17, p < .05, partial ηⁱⁱ = .12. Overall, collapsing across general and specific retentiveness, mother-referent objects (Thousand = .66) and cocky-referent objects (M = .65) had higher levels of recognition than objects encoded with reference to Nib Clinton (M = .58). We conducted a series of contrasts betwixt the levels of condition in lodge to clarify the nature of the condition chief event. A primary effect contrast collapsing across memory type revealed that Clinton-referent objects were less likely to be remembered than objects encoded with either the self, F (1, 31) = 6.16, p < .05, partial η² = .17, or the mother, F (1, 31) = 7.44, p < .01, partial η² = .19. No pregnant differences were found in memory for self-referent and female parent-referent objects, F (one, 31) = .04, p = .84, fractional η² < .01. The two-way interaction between retentivity type and condition did non attain significance, F (ii, 62) = .12, p > .85, fractional η² < .01.

Experiment one: Recognition accuracy for specific and full general memory for visual objects. Overall, general memory scores were significantly higher than specific memory scores. Self-referent and mother-referent objects were remembered significantly meliorate than Bill Clinton-referent objects.

The exam of specific, equally well as general, recognition allows usa to determine that cocky-, and here, intimate other-referencing, improve the encoding of details in memory, rather than simply enhancing a general sense of familiarity for information . Our results suggest that self-referencing and referencing an intimate other person, like one's mother, benefit not just memory for the "gist" of objects only also help to accurately encode some complex visual details of those objects. Across all three weather condition, specific recognition scores were lower than the respective general retention scores only still relatively strong (in a higher place fifty%), which suggests that specific details of the objects, like colour, shape, and other perceptual features, were successfully encoded through these referencing techniques and later retrieved in the retention task. General retentiveness scores reflect participants' ability to remember the general idea of a previously seen object, for example, remembering the type of object. The lower specific and general retentiveness scores for objects encoded in the Bill Clinton condition signal that this encoding condition was less constructive than the cocky or mother conditions because the details of objects in this status were not remembered as clearly, which is consistent with the literature for self versus familiar but non intimate others (reviewed by Symons & Johnson, 1997). Encoding not-intimate others seems to produce less accurate and brilliant memories than self- and intimate other-encoding. While information technology is somewhat surprising that cocky- and female parent-referencing resulted in similar effects on memory, there is some precedent in the literature for this finding. We volition return to this signal in the discussion.

Given the disproportionate emphasis on verbal tasks in the cocky-referencing literature to date, our exploration of the benefits of self-referencing on memories for visually detailed objects in Experiment 1 is an of import extension. Different trait adjectives, these objects are unlikely to be part of the pre-existing self-concept or the concept one has nigh their female parent or Bill Clinton. All the same, although Experiment ane indicates that self-referencing improves memory for specific visual details, it is unclear how this finding relates to other literature. The majority of self-referencing research focuses on retentiveness for exact stimuli (reviewed by Symons & Johnson, 1997), which do not contain as much rich perceptual detail as pictures do. We sought to further investigate retentivity for specific details in Experiment 2, using an adjective memory paradigm.

EXPERIMENT 2

In addition to the memory for visual details of an object, source information represents another blazon of detail in retentiveness. Source retention describes memory for the context or atmospheric condition in which information was learned,(Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993). While there are many types of external sources to exist remembered in the world, such as which person (e.g., did I learn this from my mother or my professor?) or written source (e.g., did I read this in a reputable paper or a tabloid?) provided information, there are also dissimilar internal sources for which the self is the source, such as whether ane imagined an event occurring or told information to someone else (Johnson & Raye, 1981). Mostly memories for external sources are associated with perceptual details while memories for internal sources contain details about mental operations, such as searching for relevant data, imagining, or making decisions (Johnson & Raye, 1981; Johnson, Raye, Foley, & Foley, 1981).

Accurately retrieving source information tin can betoken that memories accept been encoded with more associated particular than memories for which source information is not available. For the typical adjective judgment paradigms used in self-referencing studies, there are few relevant external, perceptual details of sources that could be tested. In fact, perceptual judgments, such as deciding whether a word is presented in upper or lower instance, typically lead to the poorest old/new recognition memory in these paradigms, compared to other typical conditions in which participants encode words by making judgments about whether an adjective described them or another person, or had a particular semantic (e.g., pleasantness) property (Symons & Johnson, 1991). These other weather invoke judgments that rely primarily on internal sources, drawing on the memories, associations, and cognitive processes brought to bear by any given adjective judgment. For example, in social club to decide, "am I clever?", i might chop-chop search autobiographical memory for episodes that confirm or disconfirm this idea, describe on a full general schema about one'southward grapheme, or assess the emotions this adjective evokes, in contrast to making a semantic judgment about how mutual or pleasant a word is, for which one might scan semantic memory in social club to determine associations of the presented word. Thus, Experiment two farther assessed the benefits of self-referencing on memory for specific details past examining source memory for verbal information. To accomplish this, participants were tested on their source memory for which job they performed at the fourth dimension of encoding, with the reasoning being that each of the conditions invoked different sets of mental operations and associations.

Method

Participants

Twenty-7 students between the ages of xviii and 30 participated in the study. Informed consent was obtained in a method approved past the Brandeis University Institutional Review Lath.

Materials and procedures

Participants incidentally encoded a serial of adjectives by judging whether the word described them (self), was usually encountered (common), or was presented in uppercase letters (case). These comparing atmospheric condition were selected to exist consistent with previous research that employed semantic (common) too as shallow perceptual (instance) judgments in order to compare against self-referencing. Each trial consisted of a single describing word discussion and a cue give-and-take (self, mutual, or instance) indicating the type of judgment to be fabricated. Words were selected from published norms (Anderson, 1968), as used in prior studies (e.thousand., Gutchess, Kensinger, & Schacter, 2007). Participants fabricated responses using keys labeled "yes" and "no" for 144 words presented for 4 seconds each. 3 counterbalanced orders were used such that words were studied in each condition an equal number of times beyond participants. Later on a ten minute retention interval during which participants completed paper and pencil measures, participants received a surprise self-paced source recognition exam with a single describing word presented on the screen. For 288 words, participants adamant nether which condition each discussion had been encoded, or whether it was new. Participants responded by pressing one of four buttons corresponding to "cocky", "common", "case", or "new".

Results and Discussion

Corrected recognition scores were calculated using hit rates minus false warning rates to correct for guessing. Scores were calculated for both specific memory scores (i.e., correctly recalling the source) and general retentiveness (i.due east., one-time/new recognition). Notation that dissimilar false alarm rates were used in the two analyses. Specific memory scores used a response-specific false alarm rate (east.g., misusing the characterization "self" for a "new" item) whereas full general retention scores used an overall false warning rate (i.e., misapplying the label corresponding to whatever of the iii studied conditions - self, common, or example – to a "new" trial).

We conducted a 2×3 ANOVA with memory blazon (general, specific) and condition (self, common, case) as inside-subjects variables. Consistent with prior studies of self-referencing (Gutchess, Kensinger, Yoon, et al., 2007; Symons & Johnson, 1997), a main effect of condition emerged, F(2, 52) = 71.55, p<.001, partial η² = .73, with self-referencing resulting in numerically higher retention (M = .46) than judgments of commonality (M = .34) or case (Thousand = .xvi). General memory (M = .35) was also superior to specific memory (M = .29), F(1, 26) = 40.65, p<.001, partial η² = .61. Of principal importance, status interacted with retentivity blazon, F(2, 52) = 18.65, p<.001, partial η² = .42. Encoding source information of words in reference to the self appears to unduly benefit specific memory relative to the other weather condition, as seen in Effigy three. Follow-up 2×2 ANOVAs using simply ii levels of the status variable supported this claim, with a pregnant condition × memory type interaction when comparison the self trials to the common trials, F(1, 53) = 27.93, p<.001, partial η² = .35, but no significant interaction when comparing the mutual trials to the case trials, p>.40.

Experiment 2: Recognition accuracy for specific and general retentivity for verbal stimuli with semantic and perceptual comparing weather condition.

The results of Experiment 2 point that cocky-referencing enhanced performance across both general and specific measures of retentiveness, relative to semantic and shallow weather. While this finding is consistent with prior work on general memory and the results of Experiment 1 (relative to the unfamiliar other person condition), cocky-referencing disproportionately benefited specific retention for source information. This enhancement indicates that a self-referencing manipulation can be particularly effective for encoding source details of exact memories.

EXPERIMENT 3

Experiment 2 suggests that self-referencing tin can disproportionately benefit specific memory, which contrasts the results of Experiment ane. While we believe that this reflects the processes and features of memory that assistance to distinguish judgments about internal sources from each other (as opposed to highly perceptually detailed pictures of objects, as in Exp 1), the comparison conditions were besides very different across the ii studies. It is possible that the relatively larger boost to specific than full general memory for self-referenced information in Exp 2 reflects the more semantic nature of the commonness and font case judgments, which lack the rich social content imparted by the conditions in which 1 makes judgments about one's mother or Bill Clinton. Thus, we sought to extend the findings on source retentiveness for internal judgments to conditions more comparable to those in Exp 1. Furthermore, judgments about different target individuals (rather than semantic or perceptual judgments) would crave effectively distinctions amongst the mental operations evoked during encoding, providing a more stringent exam of the extent to which cocky-referencing improves the encoding of specific source details.

Methods

Participants

Xx-four students betwixt the ages of 18 and 27 participated in the report. Informed consent was obtained in a method canonical by the Brandeis University Institutional Review Lath.

Materials and procedures

The methods used in Experiment iii were identical to those used in Experiment 2, with the exception of the judgment conditions being cocky-, mother- (shut other), and Clinton- (familiar but not shut other) referent rather than self-referent, common (semantic), and case (perceptual).

Results and Discussion

Every bit in Experiment 2, recognition scores were calculated by subtracting imitation alarm rates from hitting rates to business relationship for guessing. Both specific (correctly recalling the source as self-, female parent-, or Clinton-referent) and full general (recalling if the discussion is sometime/new) memory scores were calculated. Different faux alarm rates were used in calculating specific and general memory scores, every bit described in Exp. 2.

A 2×3 ANOVA with memory type (general, specific) and condition (self, mother, Clinton) as within-subject area variables revealed a principal effect of status, F(2, 46) = 57.29, p<.001, partial η² =.71. Self-referencing led to improve retentivity performance (M = .56) than did mother- (M = .45) or Clinton-referencing (M = .36). Likewise consistent with the results of Exp. 1 and two was a principal outcome of memory blazon, F(i, 23) = 25.32, p<.001, partial η² = .52, with general memory performance (G = .48) significantly better than specific memory performance (M = .43).

Nigh chiefly, there was a pregnant interaction between status and retentivity type, F(two, 46) = four.62, p<.05, partial η^two = .17. Upon conducting subsequent ii×ii ANOVAs using two levels of the status variable at a fourth dimension (eastward.g., self vs. female parent, mother vs. Clinton), a significant interaction was revealed in comparison cocky-referent trials to female parent-referent trials, F(i, 23) = ix.84, p<.01, partial η^two = .30, while there was no significant interaction between female parent-referent and Clinton-referent trials, p>.29.

This finding further supports our claim that cocky-referencing disproportionately benefits the encoding of specific details in comparison to not only semantic and perceptual encoding conditions, every bit plant in Experiment two, but to other-referencing conditions. These results provide evidence of the force of self-referencing as a memory-enhancing method, particularly for specific details such every bit the internal source of that particular. Fifty-fifty though the paradigm employed the same weather condition as Experiment 1, the disproportionate affect of cocky-referencing on specific memory converges with the pattern of results from Experiment two. This finding suggests that self-referencing may be peculiarly potent for encoding details about mental operations, as was the case for these source memory judgments.

GENERAL Word

Across three experiments, we investigated the upshot of self-referencing on retentivity for item details. Although the cocky-reference upshot has proven to be fairly robust in the literature, previous studies have simply provided insight into the accurateness of self-referential memories at the full general, or item, level. The present studies betoken that self-referential encoding is an effective strategy to use to remember not only the "gist" of information, but likewise specific details such every bit visual properties for a highly perceptual job (Experiment 1) or the source for a chore emphasizing mental operations (Experiments 2 & iii). This finding indicates that cocky-referencing does not operate solely through increasing familiarity or general memory for the item but as well enhances retentivity for specific details of an event, which likely draws on more than recollective processes. Such a blueprint is consistent with our recent work with older adults indicating that cocky-referencing can enhance retentiveness for details even for a grouping that tends to showroom overly general retentivity (Hamami, Serbun, & Gutchess, in press).

Whereas Experiment 1 indicates a similar enhancement for full general and particular information when information is related to the self or to an intimately known other person, Experiment 2 and 3 discover that self-referencing unduly increases specific memory relative to other weather condition. This indicates that under some weather condition, self-referencing can be a particularly effective means of encoding rich, detailed memories. Nosotros suggest that this is true for memories that rely heavily on the unique content or associations from mental operations, every bit is needed to distinguish different internal sources in retention (e.grand., what did I think almost this discussion? Who did I relate it to?) (Johnson & Raye, 1981; Johnson et al., 1981), but further work is necessary to characterize the contexts in which cocky-referencing can disproportionately enhance memory for details and qualities of events. While there have been long-continuing debates as to whether self-referencing has "special" properties for retentiveness (eastward.thou., Rogers et al., 1977; Symons & Johnson, 1997; Gillihan & Farah, 2005; Greenwald and Banaji, 1989), an argument further bolstered by neuroimaging data indicating a singled-out neural ground for self-referenced memories in contrast to other "deep" encoding conditions (e.1000., Macrae, Moran, Heatherton, Banfield, & Kelley, 2004), our data argue that referencing the self can make an exceptional contribution to memory for specific details, compared to other types of judgments.

Although we postulate that the departure across the experiments in the extent of self-referencing benefit to specific memory is due to the nature of the operations required for internal source judgments (Exp 2 & 3), other factors may contribute. The difference in the findings across the studies could reflect the limited fourth dimension bachelor for encoding details. Pictures were presented for only 500 msec which, although information technology supported relatively robust levels of memory functioning and is consistent with some prior studies (e.thou., Kensinger, et al., 2006), the duration is much shorter than the 4000 msec presentation time employed in Experiments 2 & three. The brief encoding interval may have express participants' ability to benefit from the encoding strategy in order to encode additional perceptual details. The relatively modest differences in the level of performance on general vs. specific memory provide support for this idea. It is as well possible that performance is close to ceiling in Experiment 1, limiting our power to discover interactions across general and specific retention. We doubtable this is non the case because no participant accomplished perfect recognition scores across all weather condition. Furthermore, older adults, who tend to showroom poorer memory performance, practise not showroom differential self-reference benefits across general and specific memory (Hamami et al., in printing).

Some other inconsistency across the studies is in the benefits of referencing a shut other. While much of the literature reports a do good for referencing the cocky over referencing a close, intimate other (e.g., Heatherton, et al., 2006; Klein, Burton, & Loftus, 1989; Lord, 1980), as we found in Experiment 3, there is some precedent for our Experiment ane finding of similar benefits across these two conditions (run across Bower & Gilligan, 1979; Symons & Johnson, 1997). Bear witness suggests that the cognitive processes underlying self-referencing and other-referencing differ (Turk, Cunningham, & Macrae, 2008), while other research indicates that close others are integrated into the cocky-concept (Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991). It is possible that the potentially high ecological validity of our shopping task in which people fabricated purchase decisions could, notwithstanding, minimize the distinction between self and shut others. People have all-encompassing experience shopping for intimate others, including the female parent, and could sometimes even use the self as a proxy (e.m., I hate this shirt! So then would my mother.). In contrast, making trait judgments virtually the self vs. other may invoke highly distinct processes, which would explain the differential benefits of referencing the self vs. a shut other in Experiment 3.

In conclusion, the findings of our study offer an of import contribution to the self-referencing literature. Self-referencing not simply enhances item retentivity that supports old/new decisions, merely besides enhances memory for perceptual details and mental operations contributing to memory for the source of data. Nether some conditions, self-referencing may allow for encoding of even more specific details of memories than other encoding weather, shown here for memories for the perceptual details of pictures of objects and source memory for judgments made virtually adjectives. Thus, self-referencing may be a especially influential strategy in helping individuals to form richly detailed and authentic memories.

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Experiment 3: Recognition accuracy for specific and general memory for verbal stimuli with social comparing conditions.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Elizabeth Kensinger, Malcolm Watson, Xiaodong Liu, Nicole Rosa, and Amanda Hemmesch for helpful feedback and Maya Siegel, Shirley Lo, Sapir Karli, and Jessica Nusbaum for experimental assistance. Portions of this research were conducted while A.H.M. was a fellow of the American Federation for Aging Inquiry and was supported by the National Institute on Aging (R21 AG032382).

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What Is Self Reference Effect,

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3226761/

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