The effects of ageing and divided attention on the self-reference effect in emotional memory: Spontaneous or effortful mnemonic benefits?
The self-reference effect (SRE) is a powerful memory advantage associated with encoding in reference to the self (e.g., Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977). To explore whether this mnemonic benefit occurs spontaneously, the current study assessed how ageing and divided attention affect
the magnitude of the SRE in emotional memory (i.e., memory for emotional stimuli). The sample included a young Full Attention group (young-FA), a young Divided Attention group (young-DA), and an older adult group. The division of attention was manipulated at encoding where participants incidentally
studied positive, negative, and neutral trait adjectives in either a self-reference (i.e., rating how well each word describes themselves) or an other-reference condition (i.e., rating how well each word describes another person). Memory for these words was assessed with both recall and recognition
tasks. The results from both tasks demonstrated equivalent SRE for all three groups across emotional valence categories of stimuli, suggesting that the SRE is a spontaneous, effortless, and robust effect in memory.
Keywords: Ageing; Divided attention; Emotional memory; Self-reference effect; Spontaneous effect
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 2: Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Publication date: 01 August 2012
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