Is There a Survival-processing Effect in Memory for Environmental Sounds?

Moscherosch, Frédéric (2022) Is There a Survival-processing Effect in Memory for Environmental Sounds? Bachelor thesis, Psychology.

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Abstract

People are more likely to remember items that were rated for their relevance in a survival scenario than items rated for their relevance in a control rating task. This phenomenon, referred to as the ‘survival-processing advantage’, has been replicated many times. Still, none of those replications has ever investigated the generalizability of this phenomenon to the auditory system. This study used a classic free-recall paradigm to explore the presence of a survival advantage for environmental sounds. We found that participants did not recall significantly more environmental sounds presented in a survival condition than in a pleasantness-rating task. These results suggest that, unlike visual stimuli, environmental sounds do not elicit a survival advantage. In the discussion, we provide theoretical interpretations for the absence of a significant survival advantage and supply arguments to encourage future research to focus on sensory-modality exploration.

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor)
Supervisor name:	Nieuwenstein, M.R.
Degree programme:	Psychology
Differentiation route:	None [Bachelor Psychology]
Date Deposited:	29 Jul 2022 08:00
Last Modified:	29 Jul 2022 08:00
URI:	http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/1199

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