{"id":1771,"date":"2014-11-23T22:28:53","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T03:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/?p=1771"},"modified":"2017-06-27T15:15:58","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T19:15:58","slug":"does-survival-processing-increase-memory-accuracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2014\/11\/23\/does-survival-processing-increase-memory-accuracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Survival Processing Increase Memory Accuracy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever been in a life or death experience? Walked across a bear in the woods? Almost been eaten by a tiger? Gotten in a car crash? Did you find your memory of this event to be clear and accurate, possibly almost like slow motion? Have you made that mistake again, or been more careful in similar settings? Recent studies have shown that the human memory system evolved to afford us a survival advantage (Nairne et al. 2008.<\/a>) This functional analysis of memory explains that the purpose of memory is to remember the best way to survive. Humans need to accurately remember what situations pose a threat to them so they can successfully avoid those situations in the future.<\/p>\n

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However, memory is also quite malleable. Memory can be easily misremembered or altered, and is not always an accurate expression of an event. False memories,<\/a> which are events that are remembered even though they never actually occurred, are actually quite common. The Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm (DRM paradigm) is often used to induce false memories. The DRM paradigm is a list of words, either verbal or visual, that all relate\u00a0to one word not listed. As an example, the list could contain words like \u201cbed, sheets, snooze, alarm, pillow, nap.\u201d All of these words concern sleeping, but the word \u201csleep\u201d would not be on this list. \u201cSleep\u201d would be the critical item, and the word that many people will falsely remember to be part of the list, even though it wasn\u2019t. There is an example of a DRM paradigm below, if a visual presentation is easier to understand. The process of creating a false memory includes a participant reading this list, but not told to remember the words or try to memorize them. Later one the participant will be given a surprise free-recall test on the words. Many misremember that\u00a0sleep was on the list, even though it was not, because of its similarity to other words on the list. The memory of “sleep” being on the list is the false memory that is created.<\/p>\n

\"drm_paradigm\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So, if memory is more accurate during situations of survival, is there\u00a0less of a chance of creating false memories in survival situations? This is the question researchers Henry Otgaar and Tom Smeets sought to figure out. Their article, entitled \u201cAdaptive Memory: Survival Processing Increases Both True and False Memory in Adults and Children\u201d looks at the prevalence of accurate and false memories in different contexts, and for different ages. Children were specifically included to find out if the kids\u00a0had a different relationship with false memories than adults did, specifically if the adaptation to survival processing is innate to humans or part of a developmental trend.<\/p>\n

The researchers set up three experiments within their larger experimental scheme. The first experiment tested college-age individuals with the DRM, the second children with the DRM, and the third experiment tested categorized material with college-age individuals. The difference in the three experiments was to tease apart the effect of age and see if false memories could also be made using the categorized list, a material that was not created with the intent to elicit a false memory, like the DRM was. The categorized list is similar to the DRM list, and all of the words still converge on a word not listed. If curious, I have added a picture below of the DRM and categorized lists used in this study below. The DRM list is the first and the categorized list is the second. The participants were asked to rate how relevant each word on their list was to the condition they were placed in, this was the studies’ independent variable. The three conditions were survival, moving (as in, fitness or location,) and pleasantness. Conditions are different settings the participants are placed in to give the experiment variations and test different aspects of the situation. In this study the conditions were the mindset the participant took while making connections between the word lists and their condition. The researchers hypothesized \u201cthat participants in the survival condition would correctly recall more words\u201d and that children in the survival condition would also remember better, and be less susceptible to false memories than in the other conditions (Otgaar & Smeets 2010.)<\/p>\n

\"DRM\/Categoization\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Otgaar and Smeets found that their hypothesis was only half right. While memory in the survival condition proved to be more accurate for the words, the participants also falsely remembered non-presented information more easily in the survival context (Otgaar & Smeets 2010.) This is true for all three experiments the experimenters performed. The researchers propose an explanation to why the survival condition had both the highest true and false recall, true meaning accurate recall, over both the pleasantness and moving conditions. They say that this false memory may not be maladaptive, but adaptive to survival, because it can be beneficial in certain situations (Sutton 2009.) An example of this would be if you were walking in a section of the woods and came across bear tracks. If you do not see a bear, you may go back to the woods again. But if you do see a bear, then it is more likely you will not, because the bear is a threat to your survival. So, if you create a\u00a0false memory of seeing a bear, even if you did not, it may make it easier for you to survive.<\/p>\n

This research shows that when our memory is the best, it can also be at its worst. But don\u2019t let that get to your head, as it looks like false memories can make for the best survival advantage! Don\u2019t fret too much over the idea that you are misremembering events either, for while it may be the best for your survival, memory is also still usually quite good. If you are curious about more research about memory in survival processing, here<\/a> is a great article that can also be found of the CogBlog! It describes some research on the advantage of survival processing on memory.<\/p>\n

\"zCpQ8bo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n

Nairne, J. S., & Pandeirada, J. N. S. (2008). Adaptive memory: Is survival processing special? Journal of Memory and Language, 59, <\/em>377\u2013385. doi:10.1016\/j.jml.2008.06.001<\/p>\n

Otgaar, H., & Smeets, T. (2010). Adaptive memory: Survival processing increases both true and false memory in adults and children.\u00a0Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(4), 1010-1016. doi:10.1037\/a0019402<\/p>\n

Sutton, J. (2009). Adaptive misbeliefs and false memories [Commentary on the article \u201cThe evolution of misbelief\u201d by R. T. McKay & D. C. Dennet]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32, <\/em>535\u2013536. doi:10.1017\/ S0140525X09991488<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever been in a life or death experience? Walked across a bear in the woods? Almost been eaten by a tiger? Gotten in a car crash? Did you find your memory of this event to be clear and accurate, possibly almost like slow motion? Have you made that mistake again, or been more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4493,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80215],"tags":[107405,149743],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4493"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1771"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1877,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771\/revisions\/1877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}