An experimental study on the self-reference effect

Self-reference at encoding increases the probability of recollective experience in recognition memory. Self-reference effect (SRE) in memory is observed when the degree of self-reference of to-be-remembered materials is varied. Usually items encoded in terms of self-reference are associated with significantly higher recall performance relative to items encoded in other ways, including semantic encoding. In our three experiments, four orientating tasks formed four levels in a between-subjects design. The conditions were rating personality traits with reference to self, mother, Lu Xun (a famous Chinese writer) or rating the traits on a negative-positive dimension. In a recognition test, subjects first identified old items and then indicated which of these were accompanied by recollective experience ('remember' responses) and which were recognized on some other basis ('know' responses). Our results showed that both the self-reference condition and mother condition were associated with the same highest proportion of correct remember responses and the same lowest proportion of correct know responses. In contrast, for Western subjects, the self-reference condition, relative to the mother condition, was associated with a higher proportion of correct remember responses and a lower proportion of correct know responses. We discussed the results with reference to the HERA model (hemispheric encoding/retrieval asymmetry).