The Aging And Features Of Survival-processing Advantage Effect In Different Survival Contexts

Survival-processing advantage effect refers to the phenomenon that processing information in relation to survival tends to promote better recall performance compared to the same information processed in other deep-processing conditions(Naime,Thompson,&Pandeirada,2007).Researchers explored this question from different aspect since this phenomenon was found and proved it was quite robust.Multiple experiments have supported its robustness for different stimuli,different scenario,and different participant,such as participants of different age.Researches that focused on age usually used young children as participants,While it is uncertain whether aged-related impairment affect this memory phenomenon.The first two experiments of this study aimed to detect if the survival-processing advantage effect is vulnerable to aging.The third experiment was to find the role of different survival context on memory retention under the inspiration of experiment Ⅱ.Experiment 1 was conducted as a 2(rating scenario:survival,pleasantness)x 3(age group:young adults,middle-age adults,old adults)between-group design,this experiment was designed to examine whether the survival-processing advantage effect was limited by aging and the magnitude of effect size among the three age groups.Experiment 2 further examined the survival processing memory performance of old people by using scenario materials suited them in the aspect of life goals and verified one might explain of the non effect for old people in the first experiment.The experiment was a 2(age group:young adults,old adults)x 3(rating scenario:original survival,reedited survival,moving)mixed design where age was manipulated between-and rating scenario within-participants.Experiment 3 was conducted as one single-factor between-group design.Theindependent variable had three levels,respectively was ancestor context,original city context,new city context.The rating in the control condition was pleasantness.This experiment aimed to examine the the ancestor environment hypothesis and the hypothesis of the self-protection activation based on effective external support.Through this study,we arrived at the following conclusions:(1)Survival-processing advantage effect occurred in young adults and middle-age adults,but the memory advantage was not observed in the old adults.(2)The opinion that old adults shift their life goals can not explain why they did not express survival-processing memory advantage.(3)The memory retention did not show significant difference in different survival context when the threat sources were similar.Ancestor environment was not the optic context that can elicit survival-processing advantage effect.(4)In the same context,it did not make any difference whether effective external support existed in the environment.