The neurocognitive features in survival processing: An ERP study

Abstract

Recent behavioral studies used a survival processing task to investigate our memory systems from an evolutionary perspective. These results showed a memory advantage for the words rated for their relevance to a survival scenario compared with the words processed under numerous other tasks. However, the proximate explanations for the survival processing effect were mainly investigated through the subsequent retention data. By using event-related potentials, the present study was aimed to explore the neurocognitive features when we perform the survival-relevance-rating task. We used a pleasantness rating task and a moving processing task as control conditions in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Our results showed a larger parietal P600 for the words processed in the survival task compared with those processed in the pleasantness task and the moving task, indicating more elaborative encoding were obtained for the words processed in the survival task. Furthermore, an attenuated N400 was observed for the survival-relevant words in the survival task, indicating the survival scenario could facilitate the retrieval of these survival-relevant words. More importantly, a larger right frontal P600 was also observed for these survival-relevant words. This component might reflect the cognitive processes when we attempt to use the objects at hand to solve the fitness-relevant problems which we are facing. The present study supports the elaborative encoding hypothesis, and found the right frontal cortex plays an important role when we perform the survival task.