Self-reference and the encoding of personal information.

Rogers, Tim; Kuiper, Nicholas A.; Kirker, W. S.

doi:10.1037/0022-3514.35.9.677

Cited by 1,479 publications

(1,283 citation statements)

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“…The most popular explanation of the SRE is that SR promotes elaborative processing of to-be-remembered information (Keenan, 1993;Rogers et al•, 1977)• Based on DOP theory, depth is equated with the extent or amount of processing that a stimulus receives, whereas elaboration involves item-specific processing (see Eysenck & Eysenck, 1979)• When a participant processes a word using elaboration, he or she attends to the specific meaning of the word and the semantic associations between the word and extra list material in semantic memory (Anderson & Reder, 1979;Einstein & Hunt, 1980;Klein & Loftus, 1988). According to Klein and Loftus, the effect of this kind of processing is to provide multiple routes for retrieval and create an environment in which "inference-based reconstruction .…”

Section: Self As a Cognitive Construct That Promotes Elaborationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…SR-semantic and SR-OR comparisons. Given the foregoing logic, we expected the results of our investigation to show that SR should produce superior memory when compared with tasks that promote less elaboration. Proponents of the elaboration hypothesis argued that, under most circumstances, SR results in greater elaboration of the stimulus word than that achieved by a semantic comparison task (e.g., Rogers et al, 1977). Thus, based on the elaboration hypothesis, the SRE should be smaller (or disappear altogether) when studies use semantic-encoding tasks that engender greater elaboration and larger when the semantic-encoding tasks engender less elaboration than the SR.…”

Section: Self As a Cognitive Construct That Promotes Elaborationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These conflicting study findings led Higgins and Bargh (1987) to conclude that "self-reference is neither necessary nor suffi-cient for memory of input to be facilitated in comparison to a semantic orientation task" (p. 392). Moreover, after 2 decades, researchers seem divided between those who are willing to attribute the SRE to special mnemonic properties of the self (e.g., Maki & McCaul, 1985;Rogers et al, 1977) and those who are not (e.g., Brown, Keenan, & Potts, 1986;Klein & Kihlstrom, 1986).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The self-reference effect in memory: A meta-analysis.

Symons¹,

Johnson²

1997

Psychological Bulletin

1,178

1,015

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In this review, the authors examine the basis for the mnemonic superiority that results from relating material to the self. A meta-analysis confirms the expected self-reference effect (SRE) in memory, with self-referent encoding strategies yielding superior memory relative to both semantic and otherreferent encoding strategies. Consistent with theory and research that suggest self-reference (SR) produces both organized and elaborate processing, the SRE was smaller (a) when SR is compared with other-reference (OR) rather than semantic encoding and (b) when the comparison tasks promote both organization and elaboration. Thus, the SRE appears to result primarily because the self is a well-developed and often-used construct that promotes elaboration and organization of encoded information. The authors discuss the implications of these and other findings for theories of the SRE and for future research.Throughout the history of psychology, researchers have used the self as a central part of their explanations of various phenomena (see Banaji & Prentice, 1994;G. T. Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984;and James, 1890). A large body of research suggests that the self-structure is unique, relative to other concepts (e.g., those about other people; see Kihlstrom et al., 1988;Markus, 1977;and Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977), in its motivational and affective implications as well as in its structure and content. Social psychologists have long posited an important affective role for the self-concept (e.g., C. W. Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965;M. Sherif & Cantril, 1947). More recently, appraisal theories of emotion have emphasized the phenomenological importance of the self in the interpretation of events and the resulting effect on emotions (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). From a motivational standpoint, examples of the self's pervasive influence abound. For example, the tendency to attribute another person's behavior to dispositional factors but one's own behavior to situational factors presumably occurs because the self dominates one's phenomenal perspective (Ross & Nisbett, 1991;Storms, 1973). Similarly, both self-serving biases and defense mechanisms have been attributed to self-protective or self-enhancing

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Section: Self As a Cognitive Construct That Promotes Elaborationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Self As a Cognitive Construct That Promotes Elaborationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The self-reference effect in memory: A meta-analysis.

Symons¹,

Johnson²

1997

Psychological Bulletin

1,178

1,015

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show abstract

“…Indeed, in these studies, retrieval performance is better for information that has been encoded in reference to the self than for information that has been processed semantically or in reference to other people. This wellknown cognitive phenomenon, named the Self Reference Effect (SRE; Rogers et al, 1977), is a strong characteristic of human cognition since it has been observed in various populations including healthy older people (Gutchess et al, 2007), with various materials and various paradigms at encoding and recognition and with different designs (for a review see Symons and Johnson, 1997).…”

Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive and neuroimaging evidence of impaired interaction between self and memory in Alzheimer's disease

Genon

Bahri

Collette

et al. 2014

Cortex

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In human cognition, self and memory processes strongly interact, as evidenced by the memory advantage for self-referential materials (Self Reference Effect (SRE) and Self Reference Recollection Effect (SRRE)). The current study examined this interaction at the behavioural level and its neural correlates in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Healthy older controls (HC) and AD patients performed trait-adjectives judgements either for selfrelevance or for other-relevance (encoding phase). In a first experiment, the encoding and subsequent yes-no recognition phases were administrated in an MRI scanner. Brain activation as measured by fMRI was examined during self-relevance judgements and anatomical images were used to search for correlation between the memory advantage for self-related items and grey matter density (GMD). In a second experiment, participants described the retrieval experience that had driven their recognition decisions (familiarity vs. recollective experience).The behavioural results revealed that the SRE and SRRE were impaired in AD patients compared to HC participants. Furthermore, verbal reports revealed that the retrieval of selfrelated information was preferentially associated with the retrieval of contextual details, such as source memory in the HC participants, but less so in the AD patients. Our imaging findings revealed that both groups activated the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) at encoding during self-relevance judgments. However, the variable and limited memory advantage for selfrelated information was associated with GMD in the lateral prefrontal cortex in the AD patients, a region supporting high-order processes linking self and memory. These findings suggest that even if AD patients engage MPFC during self-referential judgments, the retrieval of self-related memories is qualitatively and quantitatively impaired in relation with altered high-order processes in the lateral PFC.

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“…The SRE is the beneficial effect of encoding material with reference to oneself and is consistent with a functionally distinct memory system for self-knowledge. One of the first studies to report an SRE was by Rogers et al (1977). They compared memory for adjectives in four experimental conditions, in which the subject was asked to judge (a) the size of the letters that made up the word, (b) whether the word rhymed with another word, (c) whether the word was a synonym for another word, or (d) whether the word described the subject.…”

Section: Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Self Special? A Critical Review of Evidence From Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience.

Gillihan¹,

Farah²

2005

Psychological Bulletin

398

304

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Varied research findings have been taken to support the claim that humans' representation of the self is "special," that is, that it emerges from systems that are physically and functionally distinct from those used for more general purpose cognitive processing. The authors evaluate this claim by reviewing the relevant literatures and addressing the criteria for considering a system special, the various operationalizations of self, and how the studies' findings relate to the conclusions drawn. The authors conclude that many of the claims for the special status of self-related processing are premature given the evidence and that the various self-related research programs do not seem to be illuminating a unitary, common system, despite individuals' subjective experience of a unified self.A basic goal of information-processing psychology is to characterize the computational architecture of the mind, that is, to delineate the components of the information-processing system and describe their functions. Within this common framework, theories differ according to how many distinct components are posited and how specialized their functions are. In the case of some kinds of human information processing, claims of extreme specialization have been made. Language, for example, is often said to be a product of systems that are physically and functionally distinct from those used for more general-purpose cognitive processing-in other words, language has been claimed to be special. Evidence for the claim that language is special includes its reliance on a network of perisylvian brain areas that are not needed for nonlinguistic sound recognition or vocalization and its species specificity. Face recognition is also considered special by many because it relies on parts of ventral visual cortex that are not needed for visual recognition of nonface objects and because face representation is more holistic than the representation of other objects.

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Self-reference and the encoding of personal information.

Cited by 1,479 publications

References 15 publications

The self-reference effect in memory: A meta-analysis.

The self-reference effect in memory: A meta-analysis.

Cognitive and neuroimaging evidence of impaired interaction between self and memory in Alzheimer's disease

Is Self Special? A Critical Review of Evidence From Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience.

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