A Conditional Self-reference Effect, Evidence Obtained

The so-called self-reference effect (SRE, for short) refers to the phenomenon that memory is enhanced significantly when information is encoded under the self-reference condition rather than the other conditions[1]. It was first proved by Rogers et al. with empirical evidence and then got studied substantially by a respectable number of researchers. The focus of the study had gradually drifted from the argument of the mechanism of the SRE to the exploration of the factors that might influence the SRE since the proposal of the dual-processing hypothesis. However, there did exist one exception which attempted to extend the occurrence of the SRE to a more generalized situation rather than went after the trend mentioned above. Cunningham et al.[2]argued that the SRE could occur not only in the memory of words but also in the memory of objects. They developed a new paradigm (the ownership paradigm) to prove this suspect and did find the occurrence of the SRE in object memory and further made an argument that the SRE in the memory of objects was "enough robust". What we did not agree was that when they made this conclusion they did not concern the influence of certain factors which might have on the SRE of object memory. And because the SRE in the memory of objects was based on the ownership which inherently built the association between subject and object[3], we thus planned to explore whether the SRE in the memory of objects would be influenced by certain factors from the subjective perspective and the objective perspective.Experiment 1 was conducted to verify the validity of the ownership paradigm so as to provide methodological guarantee for our further exploratory research. The results showed that the recognition of the self-owned objects was better than the other-owned objects, which confirmed the validity of the ownership paradigm.Experiment 2 employed the choice from the subjective perspective to explore whether the SRE would be affected. Results showed that The main effect of ownership was significant, such that self-owned objects were recognized better than the other-owned objects. The main effect of choice did not reach significant, which meant the recognition of the chosen objects was no better than the ignored objects. The interaction between the two factors was also significant. Simple effect analysis revealed that the memory advantage of the self-owned objects over the other-owned objects only occurred in the situation when the objects being assigned were the chosen objects..Experiment 3 set out from the objective perspective to explore the influence of the novelty of the objects on the SRE. Results showed that the main effect of ownership was significant, which suggested the recognition of the self-owned objects was better than the other-owned objects. The main effect of novelty was not significant, in that the recognition of the new and the old objects did not differ at the statistical level. The interaction between the two factors occurred in that the recognition of self-owned objects was better than the other-owned objects only when the objects were new.Taken together the results from the three experiments, we concluded that the SRE is a conditional effect which could be influenced by the subjective and objective factors, such as the choice and the novelty employed in our study. That is to say, the SRE only occurred in the situation when the objects were new or chosen by the self. We suspected that it might be the attention at encoding being modulated that underlain the conditionality of the SRE. This study refuted Cunningham et al.’s "enough robust" viewpoint as well as refined our understanding of the SRE and its conditionality.