The how and why of ecological memory.

Bruce, Darryl

doi:10.1037/0096-3445.114.1.78

Cited by 123 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 58 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…Social motivations provide a functional explanation for alignment, whereas priming provides a mechanistic explanation (Bruce, 1985). These levels of explanations are not mutually exclusive: The alignment of both continuous and discrete features could be motivated by social factors, even though only the latter is subserved by a priming mechanism.…”

Section: Functional Versus Mechanistic Explanations For Alignment Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

Speech Accommodation Without Priming: The Case of Pitch

Gijssels

Casasanto

Jasmin

et al. 2015

Discourse Processes

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People often accommodate to each other's speech by aligning their linguistic production with their partner's. According to an influential theory, the Interactive Alignment Model, alignment is the result of priming. When people perceive an utterance, the corresponding linguistic representations are primed and become easier to produce. Here we tested this theory by investigating whether pitch (F0) alignment shows two characteristic signatures of priming: dose dependence and persistence. In a virtual reality experiment, we manipulated the pitch of a virtual interlocutor's speech to find out (1) whether participants accommodated to the agent's F0, (2) whether the amount of accommodation increased with increasing exposure to the agent's speech, and (3) whether changes to participants' F0 persisted beyond the conversation. Participants accommodated to the virtual interlocutor, but accommodation did not increase in strength over the conversation and disappeared immediately after the conversation ended. Results argue against a priming-based account of F0 accommodation and indicate that an alternative mechanism is needed to explain alignment along continuous dimensions of language such as speech rate and pitch.

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Section: Functional Versus Mechanistic Explanations For Alignment Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

Speech Accommodation Without Priming: The Case of Pitch

Gijssels

Casasanto

Jasmin

et al. 2015

Discourse Processes

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“…Do the functional properties of memory mirror selection pressures from our ancestral past? Memory researchers rarely address such questions, choosing to focus instead on the proximate mechanisms that guide mnemonic phenomena (Bruce, 1985;Glenberg, 1997;Nairne, 2005). Most scholars acknowledge that memory is adaptive, but the role that particular adaptive problems may have played in shaping or tuning mnemonic processes remains largely, although not completely, unexplored.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive memory: Survival processing enhances retention.

Nairne

Thompson

Pandeirada

2007

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

404

830

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The authors investigated the idea that memory systems might have evolved to help us remember fitness-relevant information-specifically, information relevant to survival. In 4 incidental learning experiments, people were asked to rate common nouns for their survival relevance (e.g., in securing food, water, or protection from predators); in control conditions, the same words were rated for pleasantness, relevance to moving to a foreign land, or personal relevance. In surprise retention tests, participants consistently showed the best memory when words were rated for survival; the survival advantage held across recall, recognition, and for both within-subject and between-subjects designs. These findings suggest that memory systems are "tuned" to remember information that is processed for fitness, perhaps as a result of survival advantages accrued in the past.

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“…Though students of memory and learning have traditionally focused on the mechanisms of memory, they have too often neglected to consider what functions are served by memory or memory systems (cf. Bruce, 1985;Neisser, 1976;Olton, 1984;Rozin & Kalat, 1971;Rozin & Schull, in press;Shettleworth, 1983Shettleworth, , 1985. Evolution provides a context in which consideration of function can contribute to the analysis of memory.…”

Section: Concluding Commentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We have tried to show that natural selection can act on memory as it does on other properties of the nervous system to produce solutions to specific environmental problems (see also Bruce, 1985;Northcutt, 1984;Rozin, 1976a).…”

Section: Memory and Reproductive Successmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of multiple memory systems.

Sherry

Schacter²

1987

Psychological Review

810

396

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The existence of multiple memory systems has been proposed in a number of areas, including cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and the study of animal learning and memory. We examine whether the existence of such multiple systems seems likely on evolutionary grounds. Multiple systems adapted to serve seemingly similar functions, which differ in important ways, are a common evolutionary outcome. The evolution of multiple memory systems requires memory systems to be specialized to such a degree that the functional problems each system handles cannot be handled by another system. We define this condition as functional incompatibility and show that it occurs for a number of the distinctions that have been proposed between memory systems. The distinction between memory for song and memory for spatial locations in birds, and between incremental habit formation and memory for unique episodes in humans and other primates provide examples. Not all memory systems are highly specialized in function, however, and the conditions under which memory systems could evolve to serve a wide range of functions are also discussed.Memory is a function that permits animals and people to acquire, retain, and retrieve many different kinds of information. We would like to thank Fergus Craik, Victoria Esses, Luc-Alain GiraIdeau, Robert Lockhart, David Olton, Paul Rozin, Sara Shettleworth, Larry Squire, Endel Tulving, and Derek Van der Kooy for their many helpful comments and Carol Macdonald for her help with preparation of this article.The order of authorship was determined by a coin toss at the Young Lok Restaurant, where most of the article evolved.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to David F. Sherry, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A1 or to Daniel L. Schacter, who is now at the Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721. 1978;Olton, Becker, & Handelmann, 1979;Rozin & Kalat, 1971;Schacter &Moscovitch, 1984;Shettleworth, 1972;Squire & Cohen, 1984;Tulving, 1983). Some researchers are not convinced of the need to postulate the existence of multiple memory systems, however, and maintain that the experimental evidence does not mandate rejecting the view of a unitary learning and memory system that is explainable by a single set of general principles or laws (Bitterman, 1975;Craik, 1983;Jacoby, 1983Jacoby, , 1984Kolers & Roediger, 1984;Logue, 1979;MacPhail, 1982;Revusky, 1977).The purposes of this article are to determine whether there are evolutionary grounds for favoring a unitary or a nonunitary view of memory and to bring together recent research on memory systems in humans and animals that bears on this problem. The principal question we address is whether the evolution of qualitatively distinct memory systems would be expected to occur or whether a single memory system that is characterized by increasing complexity and flexibility is the expected evolutionary outcome. We develop an argument that favors the former alternative and that...

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The how and why of ecological memory.

Abstract: This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Cited by 123 publications

References 58 publications

Speech Accommodation Without Priming: The Case of Pitch

Speech Accommodation Without Priming: The Case of Pitch

Adaptive memory: Survival processing enhances retention.

The evolution of multiple memory systems.

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