Memory Research Question Of The Survival Of Processing Advantages

In2007, American scholar Nairne first put forward the survival-processing advantage of memory that encoding and studying information from the survival perspective could lead to a better memory outcome. Afterwards, many scholars verified this phenomenon and did further research, proving that the survival processing advantage is so unique and powerful a functional advantage of memory system that it could not be explained by any known classic processing mechanism.This thesis, based on the summary of existing relevant research, will raise four issues for further research. They are the survival processing advantage in memory extraction, memory advantage of high titer survival information, the survival advantage in short-term information processing, and the survival processing advantage of the central executive system.The study takes freshman and sophomore students of Northwestern University as subjects to research the above issues in the empirical study.The first issue using the between-subjects design with single factor and two levels to examine whether the extraction effect of subjects in the survival situation is better than that in the control situation. The second issue using the within-subjects design with single factor and three levels to examine whether the memory performance of ancient survival-related words and modern survival-related words is higher than irrelevant words of living. The third issue using the between-subjects design with single factor and two levels to examine whether the memory effect of subjects in the survival situation is better than that in the control situation in the context of short-time coding. The forth issue using three sub-experiments that contains inhibition, transferring and updating to examine wether the efficiency of the subjects to achieve the central executive function in the survival situation is higher than that in the control situation. Among them, the experiments of inhibiton and transferring adopt2(survival situation, control situation)*2(clues in the same location、clues in the reverse location; transfer、untransfer) mixed factorial design, updating experiment adopts2(survival situation、control situation)*3(update0time、update1time and update3times) mixed factorial design.Through the outcomes of empirical research on the above-mentioned issues, this thesis comes to the following conclusions: First, the survival processing advantage exists in memory extraction.Second, memory system has a direct advantage in memorizing relevant words of ancient living and modern living.Third, short-term processing and central executive system do not have the survival processing advantage.Fourth, the survival processing advantage is mainly reflected in long-term memory rather than short-term memory or working memory.Fifth, the survival advantage manifests in whole function of memory system instead of partial function.