The mnemonic advantage of processing fitness-relevant information

Nairne, Thompson, and Pandeirada (2007) proposed that our memory systems serve an adaptive function and that they have evolved to help us remember fitness-relevant information. In a series of experiments, they demonstrated that processing words according to their survival relevance resulted in bette...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Memory & cognition 2008-09, Vol.36 (6), p.1151-1156
Main Authors: Kang, Sean H. K., McDermott, Kathleen B., Cohen, Sophie M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arousal
Association Learning
Attention
Bank robberies
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive Psychology
Computer terminals
Design
Experiments
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Imagination
Learning. Memory
Memory
Mental Recall
Planning
Psycholinguistics
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Retention
Retention (Psychology)
Set (Psychology)
Studies
Survival - psychology
Verbal Learning
Within-subjects design
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Summary:Nairne, Thompson, and Pandeirada (2007) proposed that our memory systems serve an adaptive function and that they have evolved to help us remember fitness-relevant information. In a series of experiments, they demonstrated that processing words according to their survival relevance resulted in better retention than did rating them for pleasantness, personal relevance, or relevance to moving to a new house. The aim of the present study was to examine whether the advantage of survival processing could be replicated, using a control condition that was designed to match the survival processing task in arousal, novelty, and media exposure—the relevance to planning a bank heist. We found that survival processing nonetheless yielded better retention on both a recall (Experiment 1) and a recognition (Experiment 2) test. This mnemonic advantage of survival processing was also obtained when words were rated for their relevance to a character depicted in a video clip (Experiment 3). Our findings provide additional evidence that the mnemonic benefit of survival processing is a robust phenomenon, and they also support the utility of adopting a functional perspective in investigating memory.
ISSN:0090-502X
1532-5946
DOI:10.3758/MC.36.6.1151