The self-reference effect in memory: A meta-analysis

“Once ownership is established, a psychological effect termed Self-Referential Encoding (SRE) holds that information relating to the self is preferentially encoded and organized above other types of information [14, 15].”

“It is responsible for the creation of our stream of consciousness and representing our statistical generalizations about the world.”

“…1 September 2017 | Volume 8 | Article 1700 have taken an interest in understanding whether the projection of oneself—the episodic thoughts of future experiences—shares characteristics with the episodic recall of past events (for reviews, see Schacter et al., 2007; Szpunar, 2010).”

“Once ownership is established, a psychological effect termed Self-Referential Encoding (SRE) holds that information relating to the self is preferentially encoded and organized above other types of information [15, 16].”

“Adjectives describing the self are typically better recalled and recognized than adjectives describing another character (Hudson et al., 2020; Kuiper & Derry, 1982; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“Information encoded in relation to the selfconcept benefits by being associated with a highly familiar, well-organized, and emotionladen store of self-knowledge (Greenwald & Banaji, 1989; Klein & Loftus, 1988; Sui & Humphreys, 2015; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

““What is your opinion of this object?”, “Does this adjective describe you?”), has been shown to lead to better memory performance compared to other encoding strategies, including semantic and other-referent encoding [1, 2].”

“It also draws on the self-reference effect (Rogers, 1977; Symons & Johnson, 1997) and hypothesizes that only when the child is able to generate a representation of their own perspective (e.g., the ball is in the left-hand box) does this representation become a competitor to the representation of…”

“Previous researchers have found that people are more likely to remember events related to their own states, exhibiting self-referent recall bias (Klein, 2012; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“A meta-analysis by Symons and Johnson (1997) suggests that the highly practiced and well-developed knowledge structures associated with the self have a particularly powerful facilitative effect on memory by promoting both elaboration and organization of study materials (see also Klein & Loftus, 1988).”

“The self-relevance effect has been studied in dozens of research papers and its robustness has been demonstrated across different age groups, stimuli and stimulus presentations as well as encoding and recall conditions [10].”

“…benefits of self-referential processing exceed those associated with a number of other encoding strategies, including elaborate semantic processing (Symons & Johnson, 1997), suggesting that the self may provide a boost to EM that CONTACT Matthew D. Grilli mdgrilli@email.arizona.edu *Present…”

“Specifically, referring to highly intimate others promotes a memory effect that is almost as strong as self-reference (Symons and Johnson, 1997; Zhou and Su, 2008; Xiong et al., 2012).”

“The self has long been used as an explanation for a variety of psychological phenomena (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; James, 1890; Johnson & Eagly, 1989; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“For example, Morewedge and Giblin (2015) have suggested that one possible mechanism that links the self-reference effect in memory (see Symons & Johnson, 1997) and the endowment effect is that ownership enhances the accessibility of ( mostly positive ) aspects of ones’ own possessions.”

“In addition we tend to recall more verbal detail when we relate information to ourselves (i.e., self-reference effect) (Bellezza, 1984; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“The self-reference effect is also well known as a memory phenomenon, in which self-related processing enhances memory performance (Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“Accordingly, objects that we own are processed faster than objects owned by others (Constable et al., 2019) and benefit from a memory advantage (Cunningham et al., 2008; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“The self-referential memory effect has been well replicated and is thought to be robust (D’Argembeau et al., 2007; Gutchess et al., 2007; Mitchell et al., 2006; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“…studies have shown the role of the Self in EM encoding using the manipulation of self-reference (relating a new piece of information in some way to oneself) in a laboratory context (Symons and Johnson, 1997; Klein, 2012) as an experimental simulation of the formation of EAM (Lalanne et al., 2013).”

“Self-referential processing has been associated with a mnemonic superiority relative to encoding other domains (Symons & Johnson, 1997), the so-called self-reference effect.”

“One of the possible prisms for studying these self-disorders is based on the evaluation of the self-reference effect on memory, according to which processing information closely related to the self is the most effective strategy for remembering new material [72].”

“…words or personality traits to be self-referent (applicable to themselves) and that those individuals show enhanced recall of the self-positive information (Symons & Johnson, 1997), while depressed individuals exhibit no such positivity bias (e.g., Watson, Dritschel, Jentzsch, & Obonsawin, 2008).”

“…that are referred to the self form strong memories is because of the rich associative structure that is associated with our knowledge of who we are (Symons & Johnson, 1997): this self-knowledge provides a strong schema to support memory encoding and retrieval allowing it to be retrieved…”

“It turned out that behavioral results could support either theory perfectly (Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“…researchers have shown that self-relevant information (e.g., self-owned, self-referential, or self-picked objects) is remembered better (e.g., Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000; Symons & Johnson, 1997) and processed faster than otherrelevant information (Keyes & Dlugokencka, 2014; Sui & Han, 2007).”

“This idea is supported in memory research by a psychological phenomenon called the selfreference effect: words that are related to the self (selfreferential) are remembered better than words related to others (Rogers et al., 1977; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“(i.e., self-reference effect (Klein, 2012; Penaud et al., 2022; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“A central question in self-referential processing concerns the account and critical influence factor of self-advantage (Klein & Loftus, 1988; Ma & Han, 2010; Symons & Johnson, 1997; Wang, Zhang, & Sui, 2011).”

“…Loftus, et al., 1996a; Grilli, 2017) as well as in amnesic individuals (Tulving, 1993; Klein, Sherman, et al., 1996b; Klein et al., 2002), which has led some to conceptualize selfappraisal as a primarily semantic task (Klein, Sherman, et al., 1996b; Symons and Johnson, 1997; Carson et al., 2018).”

“…their own idiosyncratic cognitive states and prior experiences (Lovelace, 1984; Tullis & Fraundorf, 2017; Underwood, 1966), and this private knowledge about their own mental states may allow them to output uniquely e ff ective cues (Kuo & Hooper, 2004; Symons & Johnson, 1997; Tullis & Finley, 2018).”

“Second, mere ownership effect occurs due to the self-reference effect: people more easily recall self-relevant things because self-referent processing contributes to memorization ( Symons & Johnson, 1997 ).”

“Symons and Johnson (1997) conclude that this is because the self is a well-developed and often-used construct that promotes elaboration and organisation of encoded information.”

“…thought to occur because an individual’s self-schema, or information about the self, is highly organised (Klein & Loftus, 1988; Rogers et al., 1977; Symons & Johnson, 1997), and further because selfreferenced material is processed more elaborately compared to control tasks (Klein & Loftus, 1988).”

“…王 芳 顾念君 黄希庭 (西南大学心理学与社会发展研究中心；认知与人格教育部重点实验室(西南大学)；西南大学心理学院, 重庆 400715) 摘 要 以网名为材料, 通过三项视觉搜索实验考察了与自我相关的网络信息可能存在的加工优势。结果 发现, 自己的网名在作为靶刺激时可以更快且更准确地被探测出来; 而在作为干扰刺激时, 其对于靶刺激 却并未表现出比对照刺激更强的抑制作用。在与真实人名进行的直接比较中, 自己的网名与真实人名的加工 成绩未出现显著差异,…”

“…practice or verify and enhance understanding of new material (Brophy, 1999; Masten & Coatsworth, 1998; Sansone & Smith, 2000; Spires & Donley, 1998; Symons & Johnson, 1997) and reliance on others for regulation may be strategic endeavors to regulate learning despite limited or unsophisticated…”

“Self-referential processing promotes organization and elaboration at encoding and lays down cues that enhance retrieval (Symons and Johnson 1997).”

“In the first phase, the persuasive information enters the WM, where it is linked to information from the long-term memory (Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“…of information was presented during encoding if they related it to themselves rather than to another person (“recognition memory;” for a review, see Symons & Johnson, 1997), and they are better able to remember who they related that information to during encoding if they related it to themselves…”

“…why individuals recall such self-relevant information better than other types of information: people tend to elaborate self-relevant information more than other types of information, thus, it is more easily recalled (Burnkrant & Unnava, 1995; Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“Also, mPFC is at the basis of the self-reference effect (SRE; Rogers et al., 1977; Symons and Johnson, 1997).”

“Several studies have already demonstrated that knowledge about oneself (self-knowledge) can be recalled more effectively than knowledge about others (Rogers et al. 1977; Symons and Johnson, 1997).”

“Given an established preference for self-relevant stimuli and the enhanced consolidation of this material in memory (Symons & Johnson, 1997), it is perhaps unsurprising that practice failed to facilitate responses to these items.”

“Additionally, researchers have shown that self-referential brain activity is functionally distinct (Macrae et al. 2004) and that people better recall things directly related to the self (Symons and Johnson 1997).”

“…is also enhanced in young and older adults, even when meaningless stimuli attain a sense of ownership (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000; Cunningham, Turk, Macdonald, & Macrae, 2008; Hamami, Serbun, & Gutchess, 2011; Leshikar, Dulas, & Duarte, 2015; Sui & Humphreys, 2015; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“It was also predicted, based on the object-function explanation discussed by Bell et al. (2015) and the self-reference effect (Rogers et al., 1977; Symons & Johnson, 1997), that memory rates would be higher in the isolated condition.”

“The self-other merging often appears between acquainted people (i.e., close friends or in-group members, Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991; Cadinu & Rothbart, 1996; Smith & Henry, 1996; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“The authors wonder whether these effects would be replicated using a deeper encoding strategy such as self-reference encoding (Rogers et al., 1977; Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“…2022 Accepted 13 April 2022 KEYWORDS Self-reference; emotional valence; cognitive effort; memory; self-positivity Encoding information in reference to oneself has been reliably found to produce a mnemonic advantage over other kinds of encoding activities (for a review, see Symons & Johnson, 1997).”

“A meta-analysis showed that self-referencing encoding promoted stimulusspecific processing (elaboration) and the relation to prior knowledge (organisation), in comparison to other-referencing encoding (Symons & Johnson, 1997).”