Numerous studies have shown that words judged for their relvance to a scenario of survival are remembered better than words from lists processed differently. Survival processing is even more effective than many mnemonic techniques. This has been interpreted as an evolutionary design feature of memory. It is argued that such a survival effect should be even more pronounced in remembering the context or source of the information. Two experiments used a source monitoring paradigm. Both studies did not find any evidence for enhanced context memory, thus questioning the evolutionary account of the survival processing effect. An alternative interpretation is discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.