Self-referential processing is distinct from semantic elaboration: Evidence from long-term memory effects in a patient with amnesia and semantic impairments Jie Sui a,b,n , Glyn W. Humphreys a,n a Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3UD, UK b Department of Psychology and Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Biomedical Engineering Department, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, PR China article info Article history: Received 24 April 2013 Received in revised form 30 July 2013 Accepted 31 July 2013 Available online 17 August 2013 Keywords: Self-referential processing Semantic elaboration Long-term memory Ownership Evaluation abstract We report data demonstrating that self-referential encoding facilitates memory performance in the absence of effects of semantic elaboration in a severely amnesic patient also suffering semantic problems. In Part 1, the patient, GA, was trained to associate items with the self or a familiar other during the encoding phase of a memory task (self-ownership decisions in Experiment 1 and self-evaluation decisions in Experiment 2). Tests of memory showed a consistent self-reference advantage, relative to a condition where the reference was another person in both experiments. The pattern of the self- reference advantage was similar to that in healthy controls. In Part 2 we demonstrate that GA showed minimal effects of semantic elaboration on memory for items he semantically classified, compared with items subject to physical size decisions; in contrast, healthy controls demonstrated enhanced memory performance after semantic relative to physical encoding. The results indicate that self-referential encoding, not semantic elaboration, improves memory in amnesia. Self-referential processing may provide a unique scaffold to help improve learning in amnesic cases. & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction 1.1. Self-referential effect on memory (SRE) There is a substantial body of work showing that memory performance is enhanced when participants refer a stimulus to themselves (e.g., does this word describe you? – a self-evaluation decision), compared to when other high-level semantic judgments are made (e.g., does the word mean the same as ‘XXXX’)(Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977). This is referred to as the self-referential effect in memory. The SRE occurs in different types of memory test including both recall (Maki & McCaul, 1985; Rogers et al., 1977) and recognition (Macrae, Moran, Heatherton, Banfield, & Kelley, 2004; Wells, Hoffman, & Enzle, 1984) and it links to introspective judgments of remembering rather than a feeling of knowing, following recognition (Zhu & Zhang, 2002; Zhu, Zhang, Fan, & Han, 2007). One account for this phenomenon is that people have a well-established self-schema which facilitates the encoding and retrieval of information when it is related to the self (e.g., Maki & McCaul, 1985; Rogers et al., 1977), perhaps by heightening atten- tion to stimuli as they are encoded. On the other hand, Klein and Kihlstrom (1986) proposed that the organization of informa- tion rather than elaborative coding determined the SRE. In a meta- analysis study, Symons and Johnson (1997) suggested that the SRE results from a well-established self-representation which supports elaborative coding and the better organization of encoded information. 1.2. The SRE and semantic elaboration From the first studies of the effects of depth of processing on memory (Craik & Lockhart, 1972), it has been known that elabora- tive semantic processing of a stimulus enhances its subsequent recognition and retrieval. These effects of semantic elaboration provide an alternative account to the SRE. For example, some researchers argue that there is nothing special with regards to the self (Gillihan & Farah, 2005), but rather the SRE stems from deeper semantic processing of stimuli when they are associated to the self (Greenwald & Banaji, 1989). Consistent with this, the SRE is reduced when self-reference conditions are compared against conditions requiring deep, elaborative encoding (Symons & Johnson, 1997). On the other hand, it has also been shown that self-referential processing (e.g., imagining carrying out an action) Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neuropsychologia Neuropsychologia 0028-3932/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.07.025 n Corresponding authors at: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3UD, UK. Tel.: þ44 1865 618638. E-mail addresses: jie.sui@psy.ox.ac.uk (J. Sui), glyn.humphreys@psy.ox.ac.uk (G.W. Humphreys). Neuropsychologia 51 (2013) 2663–2673