The Effect Of Cognitive Style And Learning Material On Self-reference Effect

When it was actively related to self, the information was better recalled than that processed by mnemonic task, this mnemonic superiority phenomenon was labeled Self-reference effect (abbreviated as SRE).This effect was found by Rogers et al. in 1977.They introduced DOP, first advanced by Craik and Lockhart (1972), into the realm of the self, and added the reference-self group to others processing groups. The results showed that different processing groups had different memory performance, namely, the result of reference-self group was superior to other groups. Since Self-reference effect related memory to self, it provided new method to study of self, this effect has received considerable attention. It became a popular field in memory, and many studies appeared. In the following studies, the methods developed from the Rogers' classic paradigm (Self-Descriptiveness Judgments) to some new methods, such as Autobiographical Retrieval, Self-generated Procedure etc.In current studies, two methods are mostly used, namely Rogers' classic paradigm and Bower's Autobiographical Retrieval (asking participants to try recalling personal experience that the trait words cause). Recently, some SRE researches are carried out by domestic scholar Zhu ying(2001)and his partners (2001),they also took the classic paradigm, but few other methods were used. Some scholars regarded the two methods equally because they produced similar SRE results in some early studies. However, Klein (1989) found the two methods had different processing course. So we use both of them on the same time in our experiment to study the difference.The research about SRE in early days mainly focused on the internal Processing mechanism of SRE. Some different theory hypotheses have been put forward, such as explanations of Self-schemata, Elaboration, Organization, and Dual processes. More researchers have accepted the latter. However, because various kinds of hypotheses all have empirical evidence to support, and few new SRE studies appeared we could easily conclude that the field has reached an impasse in terms of explaining why SRE occurred (C. S. Symons1997).The application of new index provides chance to study the internal Processing mechanism of SRE. The current researches, they mostly use "Remember"/ "Knowing" response (i.e. R/K responses) to distinguish the components within recognition which was introduced by Conway(1995).In our study ,we also apply this new index.In experiment one, we demonstrated the real existence of SRE, namely, items encoded in terms of self-reference were associated with significantly higher recall performance relative to items encoded in other ways, including semantic encoding; comparisons between means of correct R/K response also revealed that the two self-reference groups were associated with significantly more remember than know responses, which meant more recall cues, but the semantic group did not have this effect. As two kinds of self-reference tasks, there was still a dissociable effect on performances of R/K judgment between Self-descriptiveness Judgments and Autobiographical Retrieval, although the classic SRE paradigm it was, Self-Descriptiveness judgments might not have caused as much details as Autobiographical Retrieval did, so the performance was lower. At the same time, we found that the performance of Field Independence subject is not better than that of Field dependence subject as many regarded. We believe this conclusion results from the effect of material. Trait adjectives involving social evaluation are usually used in interpersonal communication, and Field dependence subject is social-oriented. Then Field dependence subject pay more attention on Trait adjectives and use them more frequently which result in more exercise. The exercise then results in better recognition. Maybe this effect of exercise makes the difference small.In experiment two, we explored the SRE differences of the two type subjects under three different materials with Autobiographical Retrieval paradigm. The results suggest that there exists SRE for both types of subjects. Field Independence subject have better performance on R/K response, especially on R response. Furthermore three different materials have different effects, namely abstract nouns and trait adjectives appear SRE, while concrete nouns doesn't appear.