ABSTRACT
Which functions do our memory systems serve in life? The adaptive view of human memory assumes that memory could be designed to retain information relevant for survival. In line with this idea, Nairne, Thompson, and Pandeirada (2007) showed that participants have especially good memory for items processed in a survival scenario. This so-called survival processing effect proved to be a very stable effect, found in different countries and with different experimental conditions. Different proximate mechanisms underlying the effect have been discussed: Planning, affective explanations, item congruity, richness of encoding, and single-item and relational processing. However, overall, richness of encoding seems to be the most promising candidate.
