Bugaiska Aurélia, Mermillod Martial, Bonin Patrick
a LEAD-CNRS , University of Bourgogne , Dijon , France.
Memory. 2015;23(2):213-32. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2014.881881. Epub 2014 Feb 6.
Four studies tested whether the thought of death contributes to the survival processing advantage found in memory tests (i.e., the survival effect). In the first study, we replicated the "Dying To Remember" (DTR) effect identified by Burns and colleagues whereby activation of death thoughts led to better retention than an aversive control situation. In Study 2, we compared an ancestral survival scenario, a modern survival scenario and a "life-after-death" scenario. The modern survival scenario and the dying scenario led to higher levels of recall than the ancestral scenario. In Study 3, we used a more salient death-thought scenario in which people imagine themselves on death row. Results showed that the "death-row" scenario yielded a level of recall similar to that of the ancestral survival condition. We also collected ratings of death-related thoughts (Studies 3 and 4) and of survival-related and planning thoughts (Study 4). The ratings indicated that death-related thoughts were induced more by the dying scenarios than by the survival scenarios, whereas the reverse was observed for both survival-related and planning thoughts. The findings are discussed in the light of two contrasting views of the influence of mortality salience in the survival effect.
四项研究检验了对死亡的思考是否会促成在记忆测试中发现的生存加工优势（即生存效应）。在第一项研究中，我们重复了伯恩斯及其同事所发现的“渴望铭记”（DTR）效应，即死亡念头的激活比厌恶控制情境能带来更好的记忆保持。在研究2中，我们比较了一个祖先生存情境、一个现代生存情境和一个“死后生活”情境。现代生存情境和濒死情境比祖先情境引发了更高水平的回忆。在研究3中，我们使用了一个更突出的死亡念头情境，即人们想象自己在死囚牢房。结果显示，“死囚牢房”情境产生的回忆水平与祖先生存情境相似。我们还收集了与死亡相关的想法（研究3和4）以及与生存相关和计划相关的想法（研究4）的评分。评分表明，濒死情境比生存情境更能引发与死亡相关的想法，而对于与生存相关和计划相关的想法则观察到相反的情况。根据关于死亡凸显性在生存效应中的影响的两种截然不同的观点对这些发现进行了讨论。
