Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Memory. 2012;20(6):596-607. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2012.690040. Epub 2012 Jun 18.
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.
自我参照效应（SRE）是一种与自我参照编码相关的强大记忆优势（例如，罗杰斯、奎珀和柯克，1977）。为了探究这种记忆增益是否自发发生，本研究评估了衰老和分散注意力如何影响情绪记忆（即对情绪刺激的记忆）中 SRE 的大小。样本包括年轻的全注意组（年轻-FA）、年轻的分散注意组（年轻-DA）和老年组。在编码时进行注意力分散的操作，参与者在自我参照条件（即评价每个词描述自己的程度）或他人参照条件（即评价每个词描述他人的程度）下偶然学习积极、消极和中性的特质形容词。使用回忆和识别任务评估对这些词的记忆。来自两个任务的结果表明，所有三个组在刺激的情绪效价类别中都表现出等效的 SRE，这表明 SRE 是记忆中的一种自发、轻松和强大的效应。
