Abstract
It is adaptive to remember animates, particularly animate agents, because they play an important role in survival and reproduction. Yet, surprisingly, the role of animacy in mnemonic processing has received little direct attention in the literature. In two experiments, participants were presented with pronounceable nonwords and properties characteristic of either living (animate) or nonliving (inanimate) things. The task was to rate the likelihood that each nonword-property pair represented a living thing or a nonliving object. In Experiment 1, a subsequent recognition memory test for the nonwords revealed a significant advantage for the nonwords paired with properties of living things. To generalize this finding, Experiment 2 replicated the animate advantage using free recall. These data demonstrate a new phenomenon in the memory literature – a possible mnemonic tuning for animacy – and add to growing data supporting adaptive memory theory.
References
2003). Motion onset captures attention. Psychological Science, 14, 427–432. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.01458
(2005). Adaptations to predators and prey. In , The handbook of evolutionary psychology (pp. 200–223). Hoboken, NJ: Wileys.
(2005). Childrens’ understanding of death as the cessation of agency: A test using sleep versus death. Cognition, 96, 93–108. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2004.05.004
(2004). Why would anyone believe in God? Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.
(2010). Remembering helpers and hinderers depends on behavioral intentions of the animate and psychopathic characteristics of the observer. Evolutionary Psychology, 8, 303–316. Retrieved from www.epjournal.net/
(1989). Memory for action events: The power of enactment. Educational Psychology Review, 1, 57–80. doi: 10.1007/BF01326550
(1975). Depth of processing and the retention of words in episodic memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104, 268–294. doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.104.3.268
(1999). Goal attribution without agency cues: The perception of “pure reason” in infancy. Cognition, 72, 237–267. doi: 10.1016/S0010-0277(99)00039-6
(1990). First principles organize attention and learning about relevant data: Number and animate-inanimate distinction as examples. Cognitive Science, 14, 79–106. doi: 10.1016/0364-0213(90)90027-T
(2011). Distinct neural systems involved in agency and animacy detection. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23, 1911–1920. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2010.21574
(1993). The development of biological knowledge: A multi-national study. Cognitive Development, 8, 47–62. doi: 10.1016/0885-2014(93)90004-O
(1973). Visual perception for biological motion and a model for its analysis. Perception & Psychophysics, 14, 201–211. doi: 10.3758/BF03212378
(2002). Decisions and the evolution of memory: Multiple systems, multiple functions. Psychological Review, 109, 306–329. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.109.2.306
(1963). The perception of causality. New York, NY: Basic Books.
(2005). The functionalist agenda in memory research. In , Experimental cognitive psychology and its applications (pp. 115–126). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02064.x
(2010). Adaptive memory: Evolutionary constraints on remembering. In , The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 53, pp. 1–32). Burlington, VT: Academic Press.
(2009). Adaptive memory: Fitness-relevance and the hunter-gatherer mind. Psychological Science, 20, 740–746. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02356.x
(2007). Adaptive memory: Survival processing enhances retention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33, 263–273. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.33.2.263
(2007). Category-specific attention for animals reflects ancestral priorities, not expertise. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 16598–16603. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0703913104
(2010). Early understandings of the link between agents and order. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 17140–17145. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0914056107
(1995). The role of enactment in implicit and explicit memory. Psychological Research, 57, 215–219. doi: 10.1007/BF00431282
(2011). Development of the animate-inanimate distinction. In , The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development (2nd ed., pp. 213–238). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
(2010). It’s alive! Animate motion captures visual attention. Psychological Science, 21, 1724–1730. doi: 10.1177/0956797610387440
(1929). The child’s conception of the world. New York, NY: Harcourt & Brace.
(2002). 358, 534 nonwords: The ARC nonword database. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55A, 1339–1362. doi: 10.1080/02724980244000099
(2000). Perceptual causality and animacy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 299–309. doi: 10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01506-0
(1987). The evolution of multiple memory systems. Psychological Review, 94, 439–454. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.94.4.439
(2012). A modulatory effect of male voice pitch on long-term memory in women: Evidence of adaptation for mate choice? Memory & Cognition, 40, 135–144. doi: 10.3758/s13421-011-0136-6
(2007). Understanding animate agents: Distinct roles for the social network and mirror system. Psychological Science, 18, 469–474. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01923.x
(