Remembering the Living Episodic Memory Is Tuned to Animacy

Human cognition is sensitive to the distinction between living and nonliving things. Animacy plays a role in language comprehension, reasoning, the organization of knowledge, and perception. Although ignored until recently, animacy significantly influences basic memory processes as well. Recent rese...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCurrent directions in psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society Vol. 26; no. 1; pp. 22 - 27
Main Authors Nairne, James S., VanArsdall, Joshua E., Cogdill, Mindi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA Sage Publications, Inc 01.02.2017
SAGE Publications
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Animation
Cognition & reasoning
Memory
Psychology
Recall
Retention
adaptive
animacy
memory
evolution
recall
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Summary:Human cognition is sensitive to the distinction between living and nonliving things. Animacy plays a role in language comprehension, reasoning, the organization of knowledge, and perception. Although ignored until recently, animacy significantly influences basic memory processes as well. Recent research has indicated that people remember animate targets better than matched inanimate targets; in fact, an item’s animacy status is one of the best predictors of its later recall. Animate processing of inanimate stimuli can produce retention advantages, as can animate touching—inanimate objects are remembered better when they are simply touched by animate things. We discuss these recent findings and their implications for the evolution of cognition, the methodology of memory experiments, and educational practice.
ISSN:0963-7214
1467-8721
DOI:10.1177/0963721416667711