Exploring the effects of ownership and choice on self-memory biases

Abstract

Objects encoded in the context of temporary ownership by self enjoy a memorial advantage over objects owned by other people. This memory effect has been linked to self-referential encoding processes. The current inquiry explored the extent to which the effects of ownership are influenced by the degree of personal choice involved in assigning ownership. In three experiments pairs of participants chose objects to keep for ownership by self, and rejected objects that were given to the other participant to own. Recognition memory for the objects was then assessed. Experiment 1 showed that participants recognised more items encoded as “self-owned” than “other-owned”, but only when they had been chosen by self. Experiment 2 replicated this pattern when participants’ sense of choice was illusory. A source memory test in Experiment 3 showed that self-chosen items were most likely to be correctly attributed to ownership by self. These findings are discussed with reference to the link between owned objects and the self, and the routes through which self-referential operations can impact on cognition.

Keywords:

• Self
• Ownership
• Choice
• Recognition memory
• Source memory

Acknowledgements

David J. Turk is supported by a research grant from the European Research Council (ERC-2007-StG202893-Self). The authors would like to thank Neil Macrae for his advice on Experiment 1, and Douglas Martin, Joanne Brebner, Stan Klein, and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and helpful comments.

Notes

¹Participants’ memory scores were also analysed using the “hits – false alarms” correction applied previously. This method yielded identical results, with no effects of Ownership, F(1, 24)=1.37, MSE=0.043, p=.253, or Chooser, F(1, 24)=2.01, MSE=0.038, p=.168, but a significant Owner×Chooser interaction, F(1, 24)=7.63, MSE=0.013, p=.011.