The Survival Advantage Effect in Prospective Memory

Chen Youzhen; Zhou Tantan; Liang Jiexuan

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240606

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (6) : 1339-1350. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240606

General Psychology，Experimental Psychology & Ergonomics

The Survival Advantage Effect in Prospective Memory

Chen Youzhen¹, Zhou Tantan², Liang Jiexuan¹

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Abstract

The survival advantage effect refers to an evolved mechanism in the human memory system that helps people better recall information related to survival or information processed in survival contexts. It has been extensively studied in the retrospective memory domain, and the results indicate that its effects are consistent. However, the role of survival processing in prospective memory (the memory designated for future intentions) is not sufficiently elucidated. Prospective memory is the ability to successfully carry out an intention, referring to the memory of a planned event in a specific situation or at a specific time in the future, and includes prospective and retrospective components. The prospective component involves the observation and recognition of goal cues, and the retrospective component involves the extraction of future intentions. Both of these components are necessary for prospective memory tasks in daily life. Therefore, this study used two experiments to examine whether survival advantages affect prospective memory and whether these effects are localized to the prospective or retrospective components.
Experiment 1 manipulated the correlation between target cues and survival situations under different encoding conditions and cognitive loads, with the aim of investigating whether prospective memory has survival advantage effects under different cognitive loads. In Experiment 1, we used a 2 (cognitive load: high, low) × 2 (encoding conditions: survival processing, hedonic evaluation) × 3 (relevance levels: high survival relevance, medium survival relevance, low survival relevance) mixed design. The encoding condition was designated as a between-subjects variable. The remaining two variables were intra-subject variables. The experiment adopted the classic dual-task paradigm of prospective memory, including ongoing tasks and prospective memory tasks. The ongoing tasks were divided into 1-back and 2-back tasks, corresponding to low and high cognitive load. The results of Experiment 1 showed that under low cognitive load conditions, the performance of the survival processing group was better than that of the hedonic evaluation group. Only the prospective memory accuracy of high survival relevance was significantly higher than that of medium and low survival relevance. Therefore, prospective memory exhibits the survival advantage effect.
In Experiment 2, which was based on Experiment 1, we used the experimental separation method to differentiate the two components of prospective memory to gain a deeper understanding of how the survival advantage effect specifically affects prospective memory components. In Experiment 2, we adopted a 2 (cognitive load: high, low) × 2 (encoding conditions: survival processing, hedonic evaluation) × 3 (relevance levels: high survival relevance, medium survival relevance, low survival relevance) mixed design. The encoding condition was designated as the between-subjects variable. The remaining two variables were within-subject variables. As with Experiment 1, the results of Experiment 2 reveal that under low cognitive load conditions, the accuracy of prospective memory for survival processing is higher. Only high survival-related prospective memory has a significantly higher accuracy than medium and low survival-related prospective memory. The results of Experiment 2 further confirmed the findings of Experiment 1-prospective memory exhibited a significant survival advantage effect. In addition, the prospective component is consistent with the overall performance of prospective memory. The retrospective component only shows survival advantage effects when it is related to moderate survival. The results indicate that both prospective memory and its components have a survival advantage effect.
The study innovatively combines the classical survival processing paradigm with the dual-task paradigm of prospective memory to uncover how the human brain processes, stores, and retrieves survival-related information and efficiently uses memory across multiple tasks in complex environments. The findings provide new insights into how to use prospective memory more effectively in learning, work, and life. Furthermore, the results showed that prospective memory and its components exhibited a survival advantage effect. The consistency effect cannot fully explain the survival advantage effect.

Key words

prospective memory / survival advantages effect / prospective component / retrospective component / cognitive load

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Chen Youzhen, Zhou Tantan, Liang Jiexuan. The Survival Advantage Effect in Prospective Memory[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(6): 1339-1350 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240606

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