Self-referential Processing In Visual Working Memory

The self-prioritization effect refers to the phenomenon that individuals respond faster or better to information that is highly relevant to them.Previously,a lot of studies have proved that self-relevant information has processing advantages in attention,memory and perception.But some scholars have pointed out that the self-prioritization effect only occurs when the task target is self-relevant and does not show self-prioritization when the task target is not self-relevant.Although a series of studies have been conducted to explore the phenomenon of the self-prioritization effect and its mechanisms,they have mainly focused on the processing of perception and memory,and less research has been conducted on the storage of self-related information.Based on the above discussion,the present study investigated whether the processing advantage of self-related information is also expressed in visual working memory on the one hand,and explored the storage mechanism of self-associated information in visual working memory on the other hand.Specifically,this study combined the self-association learning paradigm with the change-detection paradigm of visual working memory to explore the above issues through two experiments.These experiments are 2 × 3 two-factor within-subjects design.The independent variables of both experiments are change situation（change,invariant）and association（friend,self,stranger）,the dependent variables are response time and response rate.Experiment 1 explored whether subjects could show self-advantage when performing a change-detection task after completing the association of self-related information with color.The results showed that in the unchanged condition,subjects had significantly longer reaction times to self than to strangers;at the same time,reaction rates were significantly lower in the unchanged condition than in change.Also,there was no significant difference in the correctness of subjects’ judgments of self-relevant information in the constant and change conditions.The next experiment,also asked subjects to associate self-relevant information with color,but added shape as binding information for subjects to judge during the change-detection task phase.The results showed that there was no main effect for either the association or the change condition,nor was there an interaction between the two.The experimental results confirmed the processing advantage of self-relevant information in visual working memory,mainly in that self-relevant stimuli will be captured more easily by attention and more accurately by remember;self-prioritization in visual working memory is limited to the recognition of self-related stimuli,and does not contribute to feature binding and encoding in working memory,which supporting the "weak object theory" of visual working memory.