The survival processing effect (SPE), originally proposed by Narnie (2007), states that words evaluated in the context of survival are better remembered than those evaluated in other contexts. Studies that have identified a memory advantage relative to the reproductive processing effect (RPE) have found a recall advantage in ancestral parenting scenarios involving the rearing of offspring (Seitz et al., 2018).
The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of different scenarios on response bias and memory accuracy for words using a recognition memory test. In a between-subjects design, 60 participants rated the 40 words on how relevant they were to surviving, mating and raising offspring, and moving to a foreign place. Participants completed a 20-minute delay surprise recognition memory test for old and new words, using a six-point confidence scale. Compared to the other two scenarios, words evaluated in the context of moving elicited a liberal response bias (c_a) in all three scenarios. However, the response biases of the words evaluated in the context of survival and mating were not statistically different. The memory sensitivity (d_a) of the words evaluated in the context of the three scenarios did not differ significantly from each other.
The results of this study show that the addition of having and raising children to the mate finding context causes a similar response bias for memory as in the survival context, and that memory sensitivity should be examined with different analyses in studies using a recognition memory test.