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01-02-2025 | Research

The salience of an agency experience influences its ability to improve memory

Auteurs: Nicholas Hon, Ju Zheng Teo

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 1/2025

Abstract

Previous work reported that having a strong sense of agency can enhance memory for acted-upon items: Memory enhancement is evident when there is a strong sense of agency, but not when there is only a weak sense of agency. However, because of the way trials are distributed across conditions in typical studies, it is often the case that a strong sense of agency may also be very salient because it is experienced only infrequently within the context of the experiment. In this study, we examined the importance of salience in determining the memory enhancement potential of a sense of agency. We found that a weak sense of agency, provided it is made salient by infrequent occurrence, can also produce an improvement in memory. This finding indicates that salience can play an important role in determining whether an agency-related memory effect is ultimately observed. More generally, this highlights the importance of taking into consideration the salience of an agency experience when discussing its ability to affect cognition.

vorige artikel Effects of sequential and non-sequential presentation conditions of multiple-stem facts on memory integration and cognitive resource allocation

volgende artikel Reliability of online visual and proprioceptive feedback: impact on learning and sensorimotor coding

It is worth mentioning that, while agency computations are generally discussed in terms of action-outcome relationships, it is possible to experience SoA even when one does not perform an action. It is possible that SoA can be felt with purposeful inaction (Weller et al., 2020). For example, one would feel a strong sense of agency when a bowl shatters on the ground if one purposely did not try to catch it as it fell off a table. Additionally, one can feel a sense of agency when one merely decides on the action to be taken, provided it is one’s subordinate that eventually executes the decided-upon action (Schwarz et al., 2023). What is critical is that a prediction of what should happen given either one’s chosen actions or non-actions is matched against what actually happens.

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Titel: The salience of an agency experience influences its ability to improve memory
Auteurs: Nicholas Hon
Ju Zheng Teo
Publicatiedatum: 01-02-2025
Uitgeverij: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research / Uitgave 1/2025
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-024-02032-w

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