School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
Faculty of Psychology, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain.
Scand J Psychol. 2023 Dec;64(6):719-727. doi: 10.1111/sjop.12926. Epub 2023 May 18.
Destination memory can be defined as the capacity to remember to whom we transmit information. It is measured through the accuracy of retrieving the association between the information we transmit and the person to whom we transmit it. A destination memory procedure aims to emulate human interaction by sharing facts with celebrities (i.e., familiar faces) since we often communicate with people we know. However, the role of the choice about who we intend to transmit the information to has not been evaluated before. This paper investigated whether deciding with whom to share a piece of information benefits destination memory. We designed two experiments with different levels of cognitive load, increasing it from Experiment 1 to Experiment 2. The experiments included two conditions: the choice condition, in which participants chose from two options to whom they desired to share a fact, and the no-choice condition, in which participants simply shared facts with celebrities without the possibility of a choice. Experiment 1 suggested that a choice component did not affect destination memory. However, when in Experiment 2 we raised the cognitive load by increasing the number of stimuli, we found that selecting the recipient during the more challenging task provided an advantage in destination memory. This result is congruent with the explanation that the shift of the participants' attentional resources to the recipient, caused by the choice component, leads to a destination memory improvement. In sum, it seems that a choice component can improve destination memory only under demanding attentional conditions.
目的地记忆可以被定义为记住我们向谁传递信息的能力。它通过检索我们传递的信息与我们传递信息的人的关联的准确性来衡量。目的地记忆程序旨在通过与名人（即熟悉的面孔）分享事实来模拟人类互动，因为我们经常与我们认识的人交流。然而，之前尚未评估我们选择与谁传递信息的角色。本文研究了决定与谁分享信息是否有益于目的地记忆。我们设计了两个具有不同认知负荷水平的实验，从实验 1 到实验 2 逐渐增加认知负荷。实验包括两种条件：选择条件，参与者从两个选项中选择他们希望分享事实的对象；无选择条件，参与者只需与名人分享事实，而没有选择的可能性。实验 1 表明，选择组件不会影响目的地记忆。然而，当我们在实验 2 中通过增加刺激数量来增加认知负荷时，我们发现，在更具挑战性的任务中选择接收者会提供目的地记忆的优势。这一结果与以下解释一致，即选择组件将参与者的注意力资源转移到接收者身上，从而导致目的地记忆的提高。总之，似乎只有在需要注意力的情况下，选择组件才能提高目的地记忆。
