The Animate and The Inanimate

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Wiggett, A., Pritchard, I. C., & Downing, P. E. (2009). Animate and inanimate objects in human visual cortex: Evidence for task-independent category effects. Neuropsychologia, 47, 3111–3117. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.07.008 If animate items are prioritized for attention during encoding, there would likely be a subsequent memory benefit, and we refer to this as the attentional prioritization hypothesis. Attention plays an integral role during the encoding of memories (Baddeley et al., 1984; Craik et al., 1996; Fisk & Schneider, 1984), and divided attention during encoding produces dramatic reductions in recall. However, the consequences of divided attention during encoding on subsequent recognition memory are more complex. Dual process theories of recognition memory (for a review, see Yonelinas, 2002) propose that items can be recognized by assessing their familiarity or items can be recognized by recollecting details of the study event. Divided attention during encoding disrupts later recollection of details of an event, but has minimal effects on later familiarity (Jennings & Jacoby, 1993).

Snodgrass, J. C., & Vanderwart, M. (1980). A standardized set of 260 pictures: Norms for names agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 174–215. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.6.2.174 Abrams, R. A., & Christ, S. E. (2003). Motion onset captures attention. Psychological Science, 14, 427–432. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.01458 Animacy functions as a subgender through which noun cases intersect in a phenomenon called syncretism, which here can be either nominative-accusative or genitive-accusative. Inanimate nouns have accusative forms that take on the same forms as their nominative, with animate nouns marked by having their accusative forms resemble the genitive. [5]A contrasting hypothesis with respect to the effects of divided attention during encoding is that the memory benefit for animate relative to inanimate items occurs because of attention-demanding controlled processes, such as greater elaboration of animate than inanimate items. The controlled processing hypothesis is supported by Meinhardt et al. ( 2020), who found that animate words elicit more thoughts than inanimate words. They presented participants with a list of animate and inanimate words and, for each word, asked participants to write down whatever thoughts came to mind, with no time limit. Participants in both studies provided more thoughts when presented with animate words as compared to inanimate words. Further, the number of thoughts generated partially mediated the animacy effect in recall. Though correlational, these results suggest that animate items can elicit more elaborative thoughts, and that the additional elaboration could partially account for the recall advantage. a b c d Yamamoto, Mutsumi (2006). Agency and impersonality: Their linguistic and cultural manifestations. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Pub. Co. p.36. If differential attention to animate versus inanimate items mediates the animacy effect in memory, then the animacy effect should be particularly robust under divided attention conditions because the animate stimuli should receive more attention than the inanimate stimuli. Our argument parallels the logic used to test whether prioritized attention is one basis for enhanced memory for emotional material under immediate testing conditions (Talmi & McGarry, 2012). The memory advantage for emotional versus neutral stimuli is larger when attention is divided during encoding compared to full attention (Kensinger & Corkin, 2004; Kern et al., 2005; Maddox et al., 2012) because divided attention reduces memory for neutral stimuli more than emotional stimuli. A group of 30 adults (mean age 23.63 years) taken from the same pool as in Experiment 1 and having the same characteristics took part in the experiment. Stimuli VanArsdall, J. E., Nairne, J. S., Pandeirada, J. N. S., & Blunt, J. R. (2013). Adaptive memory: Animacy processing produces mnemonic advantages. Experimental Psychology, 60, 172–178. doi: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000186

Wheeler, M. A., Stuss, D. T., & Tulving, E. (1997). Toward a theory of episodic memory: The frontal lobes and autonoetic consciousness. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 331–354. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.121.3.331 The word stimuli used in Experiment 1 were again used here. We also added the French translation of the words used by Nairne et al. ( in press). Procedure Sidis, William James. The Concept of Rights. American Independence Society . Retrieved November 26, 2014– via Sidis.net. It might be asked whether the animacy effect was driven by congruity. For instance, it could be that individuals relied on the animate category to make decisions about the category the item belonged to (e.g., “is this a living thing?”) and to cue performance during retrieval. However, we do not think the congruency account likely because the participants were instructed to decide whether a given word referred to an animate or an inanimate thing, each decision requiring a specific response, pressing a different key. It is important to stress that the participants were given a brief explanation about what is meant by animate and inanimate before starting the categorization task. Thus, the animate category was not defined in a more positive way than the inanimate category. This was also the case in VanArsdall et al.’s ( 2013) study in which the participants had to use a six-point scale anchored at one end by an object and at the other by a living thing. Moreover, the animacy effect was replicated many times with intentional learning in that study, in which attention was not drawn to the animacy dimension. Sidis, William James (1926). Notes on the Collection of Transfers . Retrieved May 25, 2011– via Sidis.net.The difficulties Sidis encountered in dealing with the social structure of a collegiate setting may have shaped opinion against allowing such children to rapidly advance through higher education in his day. Research indicates that a challenging curriculum can relieve social and emotional difficulties gifted children commonly experience. [48] Bibliography [ edit ]