Mirjam Brady-Van den Bos University of Aberdeen Forever young? Self-memory biases are impervious to ageing

Self and Memory Does this trait describe you? Does this trait describe Person X? Memory advantage for information linked to self: Self Reference Effect (SRE) intelligent reliable

Objects used to define, extend or compensate self (Belk, 1988; Beggan, 1991; James, 1890) Better memory for self-owned objects? ‘ You are what you own ’

Shopping paradigm (Cunningham, Turk, Macdonald, & Macrae, 2008) Study: 72 self-owned targets, 72 other-owned targets Test: 144 targets + 72 distractors F(1,29) = 8.56, p =.007 Ownership effect: Self > Other

Remembering and Knowing Conway and Dewhurst (1995): ‘ self-relevant information is important and needs to be available for recollective experience ’ ‘ information about others may not be as important ’ Remember-Know paradigm (Tulving, 1985) Self-Reference Recollection Effect (SRRE) Conway, Dewhurst, Pearson, & Sapute (2001)

So… would we find the Ownership Effect only in the Remember responses?

Episodic memory (esp. recall) declines dramatically (reviews: Glisky, 2007; Kester, Benjamin, Castel, & Craik, 2002; Zacks, Hasher, & Li, 2000) Certain processes remain relatively unaffected by even advanced ageing Glisky and Marquine (2009): elaborative processing ‘ pure ’ self-processing Self-referencing = Decline esp. in 75+ Testing older participants (65+) +

Subjects: young-old (65-74) and old-old (75+) Psychometric test: Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) (Folstein, Folstein, & McHugh, 1975) Shopping paradigm with yes-no, followed by Remember- Know-Guess: 1: ‘ yes ’ or ‘ no ’ 2: Remember (specific memory, with details) Know (strong feeling of familiarity, no details) Guess Ageing Experiment

Predictions Young-Old: ownership effect in R, but not in K Old-Old: ownership effect in K, but not in R

Ownership effect in R responses F(1,9) = 7.721, p =.021 but not in K responses F(1,9) = 1.385, p = ns Young-old participants

Ownership effect only in K responses F(1,9) = 5.803, p =.039, but not in R responses F(1,9) = 0.225, p = ns Old-old participants

Conclusions The nature of the Ownership Effect - self affects cognition through indirect ways Effects based on: 1. elaboration 2. affect, arousal Self-memory bias preserved with ageing Thank you!

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Incidental self cue e.g. own name, image, possession cue of action required cue of threat / danger Explicit self- relevant instruction e.g. ‘ are you … ? ’ Conscious evaluations of self Affective response / arousal Attention capture Enriched encoding COMPARABL E NON-SELF PROCESSES INCIDENTAL SYSTEM EXPLICIT SYSTEM COMPARABLE NON-SELF PROCESSES deep processing with organisational strategy stereotype activated during encoding Activation of self concept Increased recollective experience organization elaboration automatic Model of Self-Referential Cognition (Remember)

Incidental self cue e.g. own name, image, possession cue of action required cue of threat / danger Explicit self- relevant instruction e.g. ‘ are you … ? ’ Conscious evaluations of self Affective response / arousal Attention capture Enriched encoding COMPARABL E NON-SELF PROCESSES INCIDENTAL SYSTEM EXPLICIT SYSTEM COMPARABLE NON-SELF PROCESSES deep processing with organisational strategy stereotype activated during encoding Activation of self concept Increased recollective experience organization elaboration Not automatic ??? Model of Self-Referential Cognition (Remember)

Incidental self cue e.g. own name, image, possession cue of action required cue of threat / danger Explicit self- relevant instruction e.g. ‘ are you … ? ’ Conscious evaluations of self Affective response / arousal Attention capture Enriched encoding COMPARABL E NON-SELF PROCESSES INCIDENTAL SYSTEM EXPLICIT SYSTEM COMPARABLE NON-SELF PROCESSES deep processing with organisational strategy stereotype activated during encoding Activation of self concept Increased recollective experience organization elaboration Impaired If no elaboration, then Ownership effect in Know responses? Preserved Increased feelings of familiarity (Know) Model of Self-Referential Cognition – Older Participants (Remember)

Outline Self-reference effect Creating self-effects with less explicit methods: Shopping Paradigm Experiment with older (65+) adults Conclusion