Not mine, it's yours: Liberal decision threshold underpins self-other memory prioritization.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• The self-reference effect (SRE) enhances memory for self-associated stimuli.
• Previous theories proposed SRE is driven by attentional boosts in early visual processing, like the Self-attention Network (SAN).
• This suggests self-relevance should overcome memory deficits from degraded stimuli.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if the SAN's proposed attentional enhancement occurs during encoding or retrieval.
• To test if self-relevance counteracts memory impairment in visually degraded stimuli.
• To explore the decisional mechanisms underlying the SRE.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments used a computerized shopping task with self- and other-owned object sorting.
• Experiment 1 manipulated low-contrast during encoding; Experiment 2 manipulated low-contrast during retrieval.
• A Hierarchical Linear Ballistic Accumulator model analyzed memory performance.

Main Results:

• Neither encoding nor retrieval low-contrast manipulation produced a behavioral SRE.
• Source memory accuracy was equal for self- and other-owned objects.
• The model indicated a caution decision threshold for self-owned objects.

Conclusions:

• The SRE might be influenced by decision-level factors, not solely early attentional processes.
• A cautious decision threshold for self-associated items may account for memory advantages.
• Decision-level factors could play a more significant role in SRE than previously thought.