Animate and Inanimate Words Demonstrate Equivalent Retrieval Dynamics Despite the Occurrence of the Animacy Advantage

Abstract

People demonstrate a memory advantage for animate (living) concepts over inanimate (nonliving) concepts in a variety of memory tasks, including free recall, but we do not know the mechanism(s) that produces this effect. We compared the retrieval dynamics (serial-position effects, probability of first recall, output order, categorical clustering, and recall contiguity) of animate and inanimate words in a typical free recall task to help elucidate this effect. Participants were more likely to recall animate than inanimate words, but we found few, if any, differences in retrieval dynamics by word type. The animacy advantage was obtained across serial position, including occurring in both the primacy and recency regions of the lists. Participants were equally likely to recall an animate or inanimate word first on the tests and did not prioritize recalling words of one type earlier in retrieval or demonstrate strong clustering by animacy at recall. Participants showed some greater contiguity of recall for inanimate words, but this outcome ran counter to the animacy effect. Together, the results suggest that the animacy advantage stems from increased item-specific memory strength for animate over inanimate words and is unlikely to stem from intentional or strategic differences in encoding or retrieval by word type, categorical strategies, or differences in temporal organization. Although the present results do not directly support or refute any current explanations for the animacy advantage, we suggest that measures of retrieval dynamics can help to inspire or constrain future accounts for this effect and can be incorporated into relevant hypothesis testing.

Animacy enhances recollection but not familiarity: Convergent evidence from the remember-know-guess paradigm and the process-dissociation procedure

“…Regardless of the animacy effect’s potential evolutionary-adaptive value, however, there is still much to learn about the immediate proximate mechanisms underpinning its expression (for how to distinguish ultimate and proximate explanations in evolutionary theory, see Scott-Phillips et al, 2011 ). Several such mechanisms have already been ruled out as they failed to gain empirical support, including categorical recall strategies (Nairne et al, 2013 ; Serra, 2021 ; VanArsdall et al, 2017 ), emotional arousal (Meinhardt et al, 2018 ; Popp & Serra, 2018 ), and mental imagery (Blunt & VanArsdall, 2021 ; Gelin et al, 2019 ).…”

The animacy effect on free recall is equally large in mixed and pure word lists or pairs

“…Participants knew that every noun would be presented for 5 s and that it would not be possible to pause or to repeat the presentation. Thus, words were presented one after another as is typical for experiments in which the effect of animacy on free recall is examined (e.g., 2 , 5 – 7 , 12 , 13 , 16 ). Participants were informed that after each list, they would be asked to recall the nouns of that list in any order.…”

“…As yet, progress has mainly been made by ruling out potential cognitive mechanisms. Based on the empirical evidence to date, neither emotional nor mental arousal 12 , 21 , nor perceived threat ( 8 , but see 22 ), nor mental imagery 9 , 23 , nor categorical organization 2 , 7 , 9 , 24 nor richness of encoding ( 13 , but see 15 ) provide satisfactory cognitive accounts of the animacy effect.…”

“…The animacy effect on free recall is typically examined by asking participants to learn mixed lists of animate and inanimate words (e.g., 2 , 5 – 7 ). Since Nairne et al’s 2 discovery, the animacy effect has been robustly replicated in many languages, including English (e.g., 8 , 9 ), French (e.g., 10 , 11 ), German (e.g., 12 , 13 ), Chinese 14 and Portuguese 5 , using intentional (e.g., 5 , 15 , 16 ) and incidental encoding tasks (e.g., 5 , 6 , 17 ).…”

Manipulations of richness of encoding do not modulate the animacy effect on memory.

“…The main progress has been made in ruling out plausible candidate mechanisms. For instance, the animacy effect has been shown not to be caused by categorical recall strategies (Blunt & VanArsdall, 2021;Gelin et al, 2017;Nairne et al, 2013;Serra, 2021;VanArsdall et al, 2015VanArsdall et al, , 2017, emotional arousal (Meinhardt et al, 2018;Popp & Serra, 2018), the perception of threat (Leding, 2019), or mental imagery (Blunt & VanArsdall, 2021;Gelin et al, 2019). Research on whether the animacy effect is caused by increased attentional processing of animate beings compared to inanimate objects has as yet resulted in inconclusive findings (Bonin et al, 2015;Bugaiska et al, 2019;Leding, 2019;Popp & Serra, 2016;Rawlinson & Kelley, 2021).…”