Can the memory enhancement of the survival judgment task be explained by the elaboration hypothesis?: Evidence from a memory load paradigm

Abstract

Many reports have described a survival judgment task that requires participants to judge words according to their relevance to a survival situation, eliciting better recall than that obtained in other judgment tasks (e.g., semantic or self-judgment tasks). Two explanatory hypotheses (the adaptive hypothesis and the elaboration hypothesis) have been proposed. Here we used the memory load paradigm to investigate whether the adaptive hypothesis or the combination hypothesis can better account for the memory enhancement of the survival judgment task. We used a survival judgment task and an autobiographical recall task with the condition of no memory load or memory load. The 48 participants performed four encoding conditions (memory load-survival, no memory load-survival, memory load-autobiographical, and no memory load-autobiographical). The results showed that memory enhancement of the survival judgment task occurred only in the no memory load condition, but not in the memory load condition. Our results support the elaboration hypothesis. We also discuss the validity of the elaboration hypothesis and future directions to be pursued in this research field. © Japanese Psychological Association 2012.