Forever young?

1
Forever young?

• Self-memory biases are impervious to ageing

Mirjam Brady-Van den BosUniversity of Aberdeen
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Self and Memory

• Does this trait describe you?
• Does this trait describe Person X?
• Memory advantage for information linked to self
• Self Reference Effect (SRE)

intelligent
reliable
3
You are what you own

• Objects used to define, extend or compensate self
  (Belk, 1988 Beggan, 1991
  James, 1890)
• Better memory for self-owned objects?

4
Shopping paradigm (Cunningham, Turk, Macdonald,
Macrae, 2008)
Study 72 self-owned targets, 72
other-owned targets Test 144 targets 72
distractors
F(1,29) 8.56, p .007 Ownership effect
Self gt Other
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Remembering and Knowing

• Conway and Dewhurst (1995)
• self-relevant information is important and
  needs to be available for recollective
  experience
• information about others may not be as
  important
• Remember-Know paradigm (Tulving, 1985)
• Self-Reference Recollection Effect (SRRE)
  Conway, Dewhurst, Pearson,
  Sapute (2001)

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So would we find the Ownership Effect only in
the Remember responses?
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Testing older participants (65)

• Episodic memory (esp. recall) declines
  dramatically (reviews Glisky,
  2007 Kester, Benjamin, Castel, Craik, 2002
  Zacks, Hasher, Li, 2000)
• Certain processes remain relatively unaffected by
  even advanced ageing
• Glisky and Marquine (2009)

elaborative processing
pure self-processing

Self-referencing
Decline esp. in 75
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Ageing Experiment

• Subjects young-old (65-74) and old-old (75)
• Psychometric test Mini Mental State Examination
  (MMSE) (Folstein, Folstein, McHugh, 1975)
• Shopping paradigm with yes-no, followed by
  Remember-Know-Guess
• 1 yes or no
• 2 Remember (specific memory, with details)
• Know (strong feeling of familiarity,
  no details)
• Guess

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Predictions

• Young-Old ownership effect in R, but not in K
• Old-Old ownership effect in K, but not in R

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Young-old participants
Ownership effect in R responses F(1,9) 7.721,
p .021 but not in K responses F(1,9) 1.385,
p ns
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Old-old participants
Ownership effect only in K responses F(1,9)
5.803, p .039, but not in R responses F(1,9)
0.225, p ns
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Conclusions

• The nature of the Ownership Effect
• - self affects cognition through indirect
  ways
• Effects based on
• 1. elaboration
• 2. affect, arousal
• Self-memory bias preserved with ageing

Thank you!
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References
Beggan, J. K. (1991). Using what you own to get
what you need The role of possessions in
satisfying control motivation. Special Issue.
Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 6,
129-146. Beggan, J. K. (1992). On the social
nature of nonsocial perception The mere
ownership effect. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 62, 229-237. Belk, R. W.
(1988). Possessions and the extended self.
Journal of Consumer Research, 15,
139-168. Bower, G. H., Gilligan, S. G. (1979).
Remembering information related to one's self.
Journal of Research in Personality, 13,
420-432. Conway, M. A., Dewhurst, S. A. (1995).
The self and recollective experience. Applied
Cognitive Psychology, 9, 1-19. Conway, M. A.,
Dewhurst, S. A., Pearson, N., Sapute, A.
(2001). The self and recollection
reconsidered How a failure to replicate failed
and why trace strength accounts of recollection
are untenable. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 15,
673-686. Cunningham, S. J., Turk, D. J.,
MacDonald, L. M., Macrae, C. N. (2008). Yours
or Mine? Ownership and memory. Consciousness and
Cognition, 17, 312318. Glisky, E. L.,
Marquine, M. J. (2009). Semantic and
self-referential processing of positive and
negative trait adjectives in older adults.
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I. M. (2000). Changes in memory processing with
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James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology,
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Model of Self-Referential Cognition
automatic
elaboration
organization
(Remember)
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Model of Self-Referential Cognition
Not automatic ???
elaboration
organization
(Remember)
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Model of Self-Referential Cognition Older
Participants
Preserved
Impaired
elaboration
organization
If no elaboration, then Ownership effect in Know
responses?
Increased feelings of familiarity (Know)
(Remember)
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Outline

• Self-reference effect
• Creating self-effects with less explicit methods
  Shopping Paradigm
• Experiment with older (65) adults
• Conclusion