Adaptive Memory

Abstract

We recently proposed that human memory systems are "tuned" to remember information that is processed for survival, perhaps as a result of fitness advantages accrued in the ancestral past. This proposal was supported by experiments in which participants showed superior memory when words were rated for survival relevance, at least relative to when words received other forms of deep processing. The current experiments tested the mettle of survival memory by pitting survival processing against conditions that are universally accepted as producing excellent retention, including conditions in which participants rated words for imagery, pleasantness, and self-reference; participants also generated words, studied words with the intention of learning them, or rated words for relevance to a contextually rich (but non-survival-related) scenario. Survival processing yielded the best retention, which suggests that it may be one of the best encoding procedures yet discovered in the memory field.

Does the thought of death contribute to the memory benefit of encoding with a survival scenario?

“…As anticipated, the pleasantness condition led to the lowest recall performance compared to the other three encoding conditions. In line with previous findings (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008a, 2008b, 2010aNairne et al, 2007Nairne et al, , 2008Nairne et al, , 2009), we found that survival processing led to better recall than pleasantness processing. Recall performance was lower under the survival condition than under the World-War-III and life-after-death conditions.…”

“…Thus, the advantage of survival processing in long-term encoding over all other deep encoding conditions is not always found. Here, in Study 1, we replicated the recall advantage of survival processing over the deep encoding pleasantness condition found in previous studies (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008a, 2008b, 2010aNairne et al, 2007Nairne et al, , 2008Nairne et al, , 2009). However, it has been observed that this enhanced retention due to encoding words in a survival scenario is not always found when compared with control conditions previously found to be generally less optimal, for example self-reference (see Klein, 2012).…”

“…The so-called "survival effects" have lent some support to the functional view of memory. When words are processed in relation to their relevance for survival, there are clear memory benefits which are not observed when the same items are processed in relation to other types of relevance (e.g., Nairne et al, 2008). The seminal work of Nairne and co-workers (Nairne et al, 2007) has stimulated an impressive number of studies.…”

“…In a series of recent studies, Nairne and colleagues (e.g., Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008a, 2008b, 2010aNairne, Pandeirada, Gregory, & Van Arsdall, 2009;Nairne, Pandeirada, & Thompson, 2008;Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada, 2007) provided evidence for the hypothesis that our current memory systems have evolved through a process of natural selection, with the result that footprints of ancestral selection pressures are still operant in healthy memory functioning. In a seminal study, Nairne et al (2007) showed that encoding lists of unrelated words within the framework of a survival scenario led to better memory performance (in unexpected free-recall tests) than other well-known (deep) encoding strategies such as self-encoding, pleasantness or imagery ratings; this has been called the survival effect (see Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008b for an overview).…”

Sleep restriction can attenuate prioritization benefits on declarative memory consolidation

“…Prioritization can enhance memory in the form of emotional salience (Hamann, 2001), evolutionary significance (Nairne et al ., 2008), or reward (Castel et al ., 2007), as in the present study. Here, we show that beneficial effects of reward on memory, as indicated by better memory for HL versus nHL content, are present a few minutes, 1 week, and even 6 weeks after encoding.…”