Download Lecture Notes 11 Adaptive Memory

Adaptive Memory
Human Memory – Spring 2023
LECTURE IS BASED ON:
Nairne (2010). Adaptive Memory: Evolutionary
Constraints on Remembering
Bell & Buchner (2012). How Adaptive Is Memory for
Cheaters?
ADAPTIVE MEMORY
¢
Not only how we remember past events but WHY we remember them
— What is the function of memory?
¢
Evolutionary psychology:
— Understanding cognitive processes requires the analysis of the
evolutionary pressures that have shaped the human brain
— Similar to our body parts serving specific functions in our body (e.g.,
heart pumping blood), our mind also evolved to serve specific
functions
— Just like our other systems, memory must be evolved to solve
specific adaptive problems
— Two lines of research:
Survival relevance and memory
¢ Memory for social-cooperation partners (cheaters)
¢
Author's personal copy
4
James S. Nairne
Table 1 Potential Candidates for Domain-Specific Mnemonic Processes.
Type of fitness-relevant
selection pressure
Examples of potential mnemonic targets
relevant to each type of selection pressure
Survival-related events
Food (edible vs. inedible), water, shelter,
medicinal plants, predators, prey
Landmarks, constellations, weather patterns
Physical and/or social characteristics of potential
mating partners and/or rivals
Altruistic acts, reciprocation, violation of social
contracts, social status or hierarchy
Physical features and social actions of kin versus
nonkin
Navigation
Reproduction
Social exchange
Kin
Note: For each category, our memory systems might be tuned to remember the examples on the right;
for example, remembering the locations of edible food, medicinal plants, the meaning of weather
patterns, family members, and altruistic acts.
Nairne, 2010
Not surprising, fitness-relevant information, such as information about
social interactions or heroic exploits, tends to transmit easily and effectively
SOME RELEVANT DATA
¢
Fitness-relevant stimuli, such as snakes and spiders,
attract more attention (Öhman & Mineka, 2001).
¢
Taboo words (highly arousing erotic words) are
remembered very well (Schmidt & Saari, 2007).
¢
Attractive faces are remembered better than average
faces (Kenrick et al., 2007).
THE SURVIVAL PROCESSING PARADIGM
¢Participants
are asked to remember the same
information (usually unrelated words) under different
processing instructions.
¢Survival
processing scenario is compared with several
deep processing conditions
¢Surprise
recall or recognition test
recognition performance for the survival rating condition is then compared
to performance in the ‘‘control’’ conditions, which also require meaningful,
or ‘‘deep,’’ processing (Craik & Tulving, 1975).
THE SURVIVAL PROCESSING PARADIGM
Table 2 Scenarios Used in Nairne et al. (2007).
Survival
Moving
Pleasantness
In this task we would like you to imagine that you are
stranded in the grasslands of a foreign land, without any
basic survival materials. Over the next few months, you
will need to find steady supplies of food and water and
protect yourself from predators. We are going to show you
a list of words, and we would like you to rate how relevant
each of these words would be for you in this survival
situation. Some of the words may be relevant and others
may not—it is up to you to decide.
In this task we would like you to imagine that you are
planning to move to a new home in a foreign land. Over
the next few months, you will need to locate and purchase
a new home and transport your belongings. We are going
to show you a list of words, and we would like you to rate
how relevant each of these words would be for you in
accomplishing this task. Some of the words may be
relevant and others may not—it is up to you to decide.
In this task, we are going to show you a list of words, and we
would like you to rate the pleasantness of each word. Some
of the words may be pleasant and others may not—it is up
to you to decide.
Author's personal copy
TYPICAL RESULT
0.70
Survival processing enhances
James S. Nairne
memory performance relative to
other forms of meaningful, deep
processing.
¢
Proportion correct recall
0.65
0.60
¢
The moving condition is included
as schematic/thematic control.
¢
This effect occurs in both withinand between-subject designs, with
recall or recognition tests,
pictures or words as stimuli.
0.55
0.50
0.45
0.40
Survival
Moving
Pleasantness
e 1 Proportion correct recall for words rated for their relevance to a survival
rio, a scenario involving moving, or for pleasantness (data adapted from Nairne
Nairne et al. 2007
, 2007).
igure 1 shows the standard finding: Survival processing enhances reten-
Author's personal copy
7
Adaptive Memory: Evolutionary Constraints on Remembering
¢
0.65
Survival processing enhances memory
performance relative to other forms of
meaningful, deep processing.
Proportion correct recall
0.60
0.55
0.50
0.45
0.40
Survival Pleasantness Imagery Self-reference Generation
Intentional
Figure 2 Proportion correct recall for words rated for their relevance to a survival
scenario along with recall proportions for a host of other recognized encoding techniNairne
ques (data adapted from Nairne et al., 2008).
forming visual images, self-reference (relating the item to a personal experi-
et al. 2008
Survival processing advantage
¢
Everyone is asked to remember exactly the same stimuli, so
it is not nature of items, it is the nature of processing!
¢
Processing information in a survival mode leads to enhanced
memory, regardless of whether information is relevant
to survival or not.
¢
Fitness-relevance is context-dependent.
‘‘food is survival relevant, but more so at the beginning of a
meal than at its completion; a fur coat has high s-value at the
North Pole, but low at the Equator’’
Alternative explanations of survival
processing advantage
—
Emotional arousal explanation
¢ survival processing could simply lead to greater
emotional arousal than control conditions, boosting later
recall of information encoded in such a context
however, increased arousal does not always lead to
enhanced memory and may, in fact, impair memory in
some circumstances (central/peripheral trade-off).
¢ emotional advantage mostly occurs in mixed lists, only
when emotional items stand out.
¢ however, survival advantage appears regardless of the task
design.
¢
Alternative explanations of survival
processing advantage
—
Thematic processing explanation
¢ survival processing is effective simply because the
information is processed in a rich thematic context, with
enhanced relational processing.
¢
Survival scenario still leads to better memory when
compared other thematic scenarios such as:
— moving to a foreign land
— vacationing at a fancy resort with all of their needs taken
care of
—
—
eating dinner at a restaurant
planning a charity event with animals at the local zoo
“REMEMBERING WITH A STONE-AGE BRAIN”
Ancestral Priorities in Survival Processing
¢
Weinstein et al. (2008) asked people to process the
relevance of words to a survival situation (just as in the
original experiment),
¢
but varied whether the scenario described an ancestral
or a modern setting:
Ancestral condition: original survival scenario
— Modern condition: only two words were changed in the
original survival scenario
—
recognition performance for the survival rating condition is then compared
to performance in the ‘‘control’’ conditions, which also require meaningful,
or ‘‘deep,’’ processing (Craik & Tulving, 1975).
city
Table 2 Scenarios Used in Nairne et al. (2007).
Survival
In this task we would like you to imagine that you are
stranded in the grasslands of a foreign land, without any
basic survival materials. Over the next few months, you
will need to find steady supplies of food and water and
protect yourself from predators. We are going to show you
a list of words, and we would like you to rate how relevant
each of these words would be for you in this survival
situation. Some of the words may be relevant and others
may not—it is up to you to decide.
Moving
In this task we would like you to imagine that you are
planning to move to a new home inattackers
a foreign land. Over
the next few months, you will need to locate and purchase
Memory performance:
new
home and transport your belongings. We are going
Ancestrala >
Modern
to show you a list of words, and we would like you to rate
how relevant each of these words would be for you in
accomplishing this task. Some of the words may be
Ancestral Priorities in Survival Processing
¢
Nairne & Pandeirada, 2010
— replicated Weinstein et al. (2008) and extended it to two
new scenarios:
1. curing an infection
2. finding necessary food
Survival scenario either in grasslands or in a city
Exp1) participants were asked to imagine they had been hurt and a
dangerous infection might be developing. Participants were
instructed to rate the relevance of words to the task of finding
‘‘relevant medicinal plants’’ to cure the infection (ancestral) or
finding ‘‘relevant antibiotics’’ (modern).
Exp2) participants were asked to imagine they had not eaten for
several days and needed to ‘‘search for and gather edible plants’’
(ancestral) or ‘‘search for and buy food’’ (modern).
Nairne & Pandeirada, 2010
MAIN QUESTION FOR EVOLUTION OF MEMORY
¢
highly specialized multiple memory systems, each
crafted to solve a particular kind of memory problem
(e.g., remembering faces, edible plants, or predator
types)?
OR
¢
a few general systems defined more by flexibility
than by specificity?
SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY (COSMIDES & TOOBY, 1989)
¢
Social interaction is supported by specific mechanisms for social
cooperation, speech, face processing, and theory of mind
¢
Cooperation can be successful in the long run if based on
reciprocity
¢
It could only evolve together with mechanisms that help people
detect and avoid cheaters
cheater-detection mechanism
People must remember cheaters
MEMORY FOR CHEATERS
Buchner & colleagues, 2009
¢ Study:
Faces + behavior descriptions
Description
MEMORY FOR CHEATERS
Buchner & colleagues, 2009
¢ Study:
Faces + behavior descriptions
(how attractive do you find this person?)
¢
Test:
Face recognition test
— Source memory test
—
old or new?
a. cheating
b. trustworthy
c. neither cheating nor trustworthy
MEMORY FOR CHEATERS
Recognition memory for faces
is not different across
conditions
But, source memory was
much better for cheaters
than for cooperators or
neutrals
SOURCE MEMORY ADVANTAGE
¢
Is this a cheater-specific advantage in memory?
¢
Or can it be explained by other variables that are
known to affect memory?
Emotion
— Distinctiveness
— Expectancy violation
—
SOURCE MEMORY ADVANTAGE: EMOTION?
¢
Cheating context (description) elicits negative emotions, so
the cheating descriptions attract attention and are encoded
better
¢
Bell & Buchner, 2010
—
Does source memory advantage generalize to negative information
that is irrelevant for social cooperation? ---- DISGUST
SOURCE MEMORY ADVANTAGE: EMOTION?
Source memory advantage
was also found for disgusting
contexts
When cheating and
disgusting contexts were
compared directly:
NO DIFFERENCE
SOURCE MEMORY ADVANTAGE: EMOTION?
¢
Source memory is generally enhanced for negative information? –NO!
—
Source memory for perpetrators and victims of cheating was
compared using identical behaviour descriptions
—
Perpetrator and victim descriptions were rated equally negative and
arousing.
—
Nevertheless, source memory was only enhanced for perpetrators, but
not for victims.
—
SO: not all negative source information is well-remembered, but only
when information is associated with negative consequences
for other people
SOURCE MEMORY ADVANTAGE: EXPECTANCY VIOLATION?
¢
Enhanced source memory for information that is incongruent with
participants’ expectations
¢
Bell et al., 2012
Source memory advantage
for cheaters was greater for
smiling faces
MAIN QUESTION FOR EVOLUTION OF MEMORY
¢
highly specialized multiple memory systems, each
crafted to solve a particular kind of memory problem
(e.g., remembering faces, edible plants, or predator
types)?
OR
¢
a few general systems defined more by flexibility
than by specificity?