Recently after class, I decided to go to the gym on campus. Because I still had all of my books, I decided to rent a locker. The locker required a 4 -digit code that I will be able to remember when I needed to open it again. Automatically, I decided to use the 4-digits of my birthday. Although using my birthdate is relatively easy to hack, no one knew that the locker belonged to me. This decision to use things relative to us for stronger memory is referred to as the self-reference effect.
According to Rogers. When we relate things to ourselves, we have stronger memories (Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977). Self-referencing, visual imagery, generation effect, and the testing effect, are approaches in which short term memories are encoded into long term memories. When we self-reference information that we want to remember, it is more effective because we know ourselves. We do not have to necessarily recall or “retrieve” our birthdays, just like we do not have to recall our names; it’s second nature. For this reason, when we have to remember information self-referencing things will allow the information to be second nature.
How many people do you think use their birthday as their phone password? My guess is a few because as mentioned earlier it’s “too easy.” Instead, people might use their relatives’ birthday, or a good friend’s birthday, I know I do. This also illustrates the self-reference effect. Although my phone’s password is not my birthday, it is still relative to me because it’s my nephews’ birthday. Memories are recalled through retrieval cues (Goldstein, 2017). In terms of my phone password, if I forgot it but then afterwards see a picture of my nephew, I will recall my password. My nephew acts as my retrieval cue to my phone password.
Essentially, self-referencing allows for longer lasting memories. As a student, I think that this can be an effective approach to learning new school material.
Sources
- Rogers, T. B., Kuiper, N. A., & Kirker, W. S. (1977). Self-reference and the encoding of personal information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(9), 677
- Goldstein, E. B. (2017). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience.
Hi Armani!
I was reading your post and as I was reading it, I began to laugh. I began to laugh because I, too, have passwords that reflect a memory or moment in time. For example, my phone password is the date my husband and I started dating and has been such since that day. It is easy for me to remember because that date is so very important to me. However, it would be harder for someone else to remember because they most likely don’t have any significance related to that date. While it is true that this falls under the self-reference effect where memory is better if one links words to themselves, it would also fall under deep processing and I had been hoping it would have been mentioned in your post! According to Goldstein, deep processing “involves close attention, focusing on an item’s meaning and relating it to something else.” In this case, we are focusing on the meaning of the item (the password) and relating it to something else (a personal memory or person), which means we are using this form of deep processing. In other words, the self-reference effect and deep processing go hand-in-hand and the self-reference effect is a form of deep processing.
Sources
Goldstein, E. B. (2017). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience.
I guess we never really stop and think about the fact that our passwords, a lot of the time, come from something personal so that it is easy to remember. I for one have pretty much the same or similar passwords for almost all my accounts and such and could definitely trace each and every one of them back to a certain person or memory… some type of connection to something significant in my life. So this is very true in what you’re saying.
I found it almost humorous how you referred to your nephew as a way to remember your password. It’s like the things and people around us don’t even realize that they play extra roles in our life. I have a similar experience with the 4 digit code I use to get money out of the bank.
I find your title to be very interesting, referring to this as potentially being “egotistical”. I guess we don’t necessarily think about it that way, we think about the thing that we won’t forget and it happens to be something centered around us and our lives. I wouldn’t make one of my passwords “recyclemore” in order to remind myself to recycle.
Overall very interesting, I would love to go deeper into the topic.
Hello Armani,
I was expecting a somewhat different article based on the title but was pleasantly surprised to read your post. You discussed the fact that we are likely to remember things which we reference based on our self and our experiences, interactions, etc. This is especially evident in the example that you also provided about commonly used passwords and PIN numbers. Prior to so many security issues and hacks, many people I knew were using some sort of date that was special to them, or the digits of the first address they lived at, and so forth.
Interested in the topic you presented, I searched for related studies and found a journal article that appears to support that self-referencing can enhance relational memory in young and older adults. The study showed more memory benefits in this area than in internal source memory and associative memory across both younger adults and older adults. (M, MD, & EL, 2017)
While I’m not sure yet about what practical applications there may be resulting from this information and the findings of that study, one can only wonder what may come in the future because of what we know now about self-reference and relational memory. It does appear that this type of memory would be fundamental for human cognition since it allows us the ability to make generalizations using stored memories in various other areas, which makes it evident that relational memory is somewhat like a glue that can hold different ideas together.
For instance, when we are trying to remember the order of operations in mathematics, may of us might recall “PEMDAS” which we stored in our memory as not only as a mnemonic device or acronym, but Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally is also rather silly, so we likely attribute this memory as something funny that we remember from that specific class, grade level, teacher or school. Since it is stored in several ways, the memory has multiple possible triggers or connected thoughts and therefore might be easier to recall or may be considered a “stronger” memory.
I think it’s really fascinating despite the fact that it almost seems to make obvious sense that it could work this way but, yet the brain is so complex, many of its functions and features still unknown to mankind and learning new things such as this is always mind-blowing to me, pun intended. Thank you for sharing!
Works Cited
M, H., MD, G., & EL, G. (2017, Nov 27). Self-reference enhances relational memory in young and older adults. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition: A Journal on Normal and Dysfunctional Development. doi:10.1080/13825585.2017.1409333