Mine to remember: The impact of ownership on recollective experience

• Published in: Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) Vol. 63; no. 6; pp. 1065 - 1071
• Main Authors: van den Bos, Mirjam, Cunningham, Sheila J., Conway, Martin A., Turk, David J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England Psychology Press 01-06-2010; SAGE Publications
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Learning. Memory; Male; Memory; Ownership; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Recollective experience; Remember-know; Self; Self Concept; Self-reference effect; Young Adult; Ownership; Self-reference effect; Self; Remember–know; Recollective experience; Human; Recognition memory; Remember-know; Memory; Subjective experience; Membership; Cognition; Experimental study
• ISSN: 1747-0218; 1747-0226
• DOI: 10.1080/17470211003770938

Evaluating information with reference to self is associated with enhanced memory, the "self-reference effect". The effect is found in recognition accompanied by recollective experience (remembering), but not in recognition based on a feeling of knowing. The current research employed an ownership procedure to investigate whether less evaluative forms of self-referential cognition produce similar enhancement of recollective experience. Participants were asked to sort items into baskets that belonged to themselves or a fictitious other. A subsequent remember-know recognition test showed that items encoded in the context of self-ownership were more likely to be correctly recognized than other-owned items. This ownership effect was found in remember, but not know, responses. This finding suggests that creating a self-referential encoding context leads to elaborative representations in episodic memory, even in the absence of explicit self-evaluation.