Memory for details about people: familiarity, relatedness, and gender congruency.
This study examines factors that influence memory for details about people. In two experiments, subjects learned fictitious details about familiar (friends, relatives) and/or unfamiliar individuals, and were tested both immediately and after a 1-week delay. To control for a confounding between familiarity and genetic relatedness in Experiment 1, in Experiment 2 specific relationships (identical twin, first cousin, acquaintance) were assigned to unfamiliar individuals. Across experiments, retention was enhanced for familiar compared to unfamiliar individuals, for friends/acquaintances compared to relatives, for more closely than distantly related individuals, and for individuals of the opposite gender as the subject.
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA. James.Kole@colorado.edu
James A
JA
Kole
Alice F
AF
Healy
D001288:Attention; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D033062:Friends / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012737:Sex Factors; D014427:Twins / Q000523:psychology
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