Abstract
We investigated the psychological mechanism of survival processing advantage from the perspective of false memory in two experiments. Using a DRM paradigm in combination with analysis based on signal detection theory, we were able to separately examine participants' utilization of verbatim representation and gist representation. Specifically, in Experiment 1, participants rated semantically related words in a survival scenario for a survival condition but rated pleasantness of words in the same DRM lists for a non-survival control condition. The results showed that participants demonstrated more gist processing in the survival condition than in the pleasantness condition; however, the degree of item-specific processing in the two encoding conditions did not significantly differ. In Experiment 2, the control task was changed to a category rating task, in which participants were asked to make category ratings of words in the category lists. We found that the survival condition involved more item-specific processing than did the category condition, but we found no significant difference between the two encoding conditions at the level of gist processing. Overall, our study demonstrates that survival processing can simultaneously promote gist and item-specific representations. When the control tasks only promoted either item-specific representation or gist representation, memory advantages of survival processing occurred.
Highlights
We investigated the psychological mechanism of survival processing advantage from the perspective of false memory in two experiments
Using a DRM paradigm in combination with analysis based on signal detection theory, we were able to separately examine participants’ utilization of verbatim representation and gist representation
The results showed that participants demonstrated more gist processing in the survival condition than in the pleasantness condition; the degree of item-specific processing in the two encoding conditions did not significantly differ
Summary
In Experiment 1, we contrasted two different within-subject encoding conditions: survival condition (survival rating task) and pleasantness condition (pleasantness rating task). The survival rating task required participants to rate words on a seven-point scale according to how relevant the words would be to survival if they were stranded in a survival scenario. The pleasantness rating task required the rating of words based on their pleasantness on a seven-point scale. Participants completed a filler task for 5 min, followed by a recognition test. With the DRM paradigm, we can observe participants’ discrimination between three types of items (studied items, critical lures and unrelated new items) and their response bias under the survival condition and the pleasantness condition
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
