title: Hippocampal activity is associated with self-descriptiveness effect in memory, whereas self-reference effect in memory depends on medial prefrontal activity.
abstract: The self has long been regarded as a unique cognitive structure by virtue of its superior mnemonic abilities. Two separate effects result from this self memory facilitation: self-reference effect and self-descriptiveness effect in memory. Self-reference effect denotes that information processed with reference to the self is better remembered than information processed with reference to others, whereas self-descriptiveness effect indicates that items judged to be self-relevant is remembered better than items judged not to be relevant to self during self-reference task. Although there is a compelling connection between self-reference effect in memory and self mentalization processes indexed by the medial prefrontal activity, the underlying mechanisms of the self-descriptiveness effect in memory have remained underspecified. In the present fMRI study, we used a subsequent memory paradigm to examine the neural correlates of self-descriptiveness and self-reference effect in memory. Participants encoded personality traits while performing self-reference and other-reference task (judged the descriptiveness of the traits to themselves or a famous person "Bruce Lee"), and then were given a test of recognition memory outside the scanner. It is revealed that the hippocampal activity corresponded with self-descriptiveness effect in memory, but the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex and perirhinal cortex related to self-reference effect in memory. These findings suggested that the memory boost for self-relevant items relies on the enhanced relational binding mechanisms employed during self-relevant items.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Xiuyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Jianqi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Qianfeng
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Zhiliang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012649:Self Concept; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen