Self-Construal Priming Affects Speed of Retrieval from Short-Term Memory

Justin A Macdonald,Stephen Rice,Joshua Sandry,Luis M Martinez

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0050007

Abstract

We investigated the effects of collective or individual self-construal priming on recall in a short-term memory (STM) task. We primed participants to either their individual or their collective self-construals or a neutral control condition. Participants then completed a STM retrieval task using either random or patterned digit strings. Findings revealed that priming an individual self-construal resulted in faster retrieval of information from STM for both stimulus types. These results indicate that individual self-accessibility improves retrieval speed of digits from STM, regardless of set configuration. More broadly, the present findings extend prior research by adding further evidence of the effects of self-construal priming on cognitive information processing.

Highlights

A person’s construal of the ‘self’ can have a fundamental impact on the entire experience of that individual [1]
Members of a collectivistic culture will vary in their level of collectivism just as those in an individualistic culture will vary in their level of individualism
Given the far-reaching impact that self-construals are thought to have, manipulating them should result in effects well beyond those behaviors directly related to individualism or collectivism

Summary

Introduction

A person’s construal of the ‘self’ can have a fundamental impact on the entire experience of that individual [1]. Given the far-reaching impact that self-construals are thought to have, manipulating them should result in effects well beyond those behaviors directly related to individualism or collectivism. Recent research has demonstrated self-construal priming effects in visual search behavior [11,12] and visual pattern recognition [13].

Results

Conclusion