A review of self-processing biases in cognition

When cues in the environment are associated with self (e.g., one’s own name, face, or coffee cup), these items trigger processing biases such as increased attentional focus, perceptual prioritization and memorial support. This paper reviews the existing literature on self-processing biases before introducing a series of studies that provide new insight into the influence of the self on cognition. In particular, the studies examine affective and memorial biases for self-relevant stimuli, and their flexible application in response to different task demands. We conclude that self-processing biases function to ensure that self-relevant information is attended to and preferentially processed because this is a perpetual goal of the self-system. However, contrary task-demands or priming can have an attenuating effect on their influence, speaking to the complexity and dynamism of the self-processing system in cognition

The self-reference effect on memory in early childhood

The self-reference effect in memory is the advantage for information encoded about self, relative to other people. The early development of this effect was explored here using a concrete encoding paradigm. Trials comprised presentation of a self- or other-image paired with a concrete object. In Study 1, 4- to 6-year-old children (N = 53) were asked in each trial whether the child pictured would like the object. Recognition memory showed an advantage for self-paired objects. Study 2 (N = 55) replicated this finding in source memory. In Study 3 (N = 56), participants simply indicated object location. Again, recognition and source memory showed an advantage for self-paired items. These findings are discussed with reference to mechanisms that ensure information of potential self-relevance is reliably encoded

Mine and me: exploring the neural basis of object ownership.

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Survival of the selfish: contrasting self-referential and survival-based encoding

Processing information in the context of personal survival scenarios elicits a memory advantage, relative to other rich encoding conditions such as self-referencing. However, previous research is unable to distinguish between the influence of survival and self-reference because personal survival is a self-referent encoding context. To resolve this issue, participants in the current study processed items in the context of their own survival and a familiar other person’s survival, as well as in a semantic context. Recognition memory for the items revealed that personal survival elicited a memory advantage relative to semantic encoding, whereas other-survival did not. These findings reinforce suggestions that the survival effect is closely tied with self-referential encoding, ensuring that fitness information of potential importance to self is successfully retained in memory

The I in Autism:severity and social functioning in Autism is related to self-processing

It is well established that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impaired understanding of others and deficits within social functioning. However, it is still unknown whether self-processing is related to these impairments and to what extent self impacts social functioning and communication. Using an ownership paradigm, we show that children with ASD and chronological- and verbal-age-matched typically developing (TD) children do show the self-referential effect in memory. In addition, the self-bias was dependent on symptom severity and socio-communicative ability. Children with milder ASD symptoms were more likely to have a high self-bias, consistent with a low attention to others relative to self. In contrast, severe ASD symptoms were associated with reduced self-bias, consistent with an ‘absent-self’ hypothesis. These findings indicate that deficits in self-processing may be related to impairments in social cognition for those on the lower end of the autism spectrum

When "It" becomes "Mine": attentional biases triggered by object ownership.

Abstract Previous research has demonstrated that higher-order cognitive processes associated with the allocation of selective attention are engaged when highly familiar self-relevant items are encountered, such as one's name, face, personal possessions and the like. The goal of our study was to determine whether these effects on attentional processing are triggered on-line at the moment self-relevance is established. In a pair of experiments, we recorded ERPs as participants viewed common objects (e.g., apple, socks, and ketchup) in the context of an “ownership” paradigm, where the presentation of each object was followed by a cue indicating whether the object nominally belonged either to the participant (a “self” cue) or the experimenter (an “other” cue). In Experiment 1, we found that “self” ownership cues were associated with increased attentional processing, as measured via the P300 component. In Experiment 2, we replicated this effect while demonstrating that at a visual–perceptual level, spatial attention became more narrowly focused on objects owned by self, as measured via the lateral occipital P1 ERP component. Taken together, our findings indicate that self-relevant attention effects are triggered by the act of taking ownership of objects associated with both perceptual and postperceptual processing in cortex.</jats:p

We are more selfish than we think:The endowment effect and reward processing within the human medial-frontal cortex

Perceived ownership has been shown to impact a variety of cognitive processes: attention, memory, and—more recently—reward processing. In the present experiment we examined whether or not perceived ownership would interact with the construct of value—the relative worth of an object. Participants completed a simple gambling game in which they gambled either for themselves or for another while electroencephalographic data were recorded. In a key manipulation, gambles for oneself or for another were for either small or large rewards. We tested the hypothesis that value affects the neural response to self-gamble outcomes, but not other-gamble outcomes. Our experimental data revealed that while participants learned the correct response option for both self and other gambles, the reward positivity evoked by wins was impacted by value only when gambling for oneself. Importantly, our findings provide additional evidence for a self-ownership bias in cognitive processing and further demonstrate the insensitivity of the medial-frontal reward system to gambles for another. </jats:p

Selfish learning:the impact of self-referential encoding on children's literacy attainment

Self-referencing (i.e., thinking about oneself during encoding) can increase attention toward to-be-encoded material, and support memory for information in adults and children. The current inquiry tested an educational application of this 'self reference effect' (SRE) on memory. A selfreferential modification of literacy tasks (vocabulary spelling) was tested in two experiments. In Experiment 1, seven- to nine-year-old children (N = 47) were asked to learn the spelling of four nonsense words by copying the vocabulary and generating sentences. Half of the children were asked to include themselves as a subject in each sentence. Results showed that children in this self-referent condition produced longer sentences and increased spelling accuracy by more than 20%, relative to those in an other-referent condition. Experiment 2 (N = 32) replicated this pattern in real-word learning. These findings demonstrate the significant potential advantages of utilizing self-referential encoding in the classroom

The thoughtful self

The relationship between a concept in the external world (e.g., the self), and its representation in cognition