The mnemonic advantage of processing fitness-relevant information

• 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
• ISSN: 0090-502X; 1532-5946
• DOI: 10.3758/MC.36.6.1151

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.