Otemon Gakuin University
Summary. This study examined the relationship between the recall
of chosen words and congruity between the selection criterion and type
of pairs in intentional memory. Participants were asked to select a more
pleasant or unpleasant word from two types of pairs, pleasant–neutral
and unpleasant–neutral, and to remember the chosen word presented in
the learning phase, followed by the free recall phase. Although the
pleasant words selected from the pleasant–neutral pairs were equally
recalled as in the unpleasant–neutral pairs, the chosen unpleasant
words from unpleasant–neutral pairs were recalled more often than those
in the pleasant–neutral pairs. These results suggest that the recall of
the chosen words was determined by the congruity between the criteria of
choosing and the type of paired words and the negativity bias in memory.
Target items to be remembered among alternative items chosen by
participants in the self-choice condition were recalled more often than
those chosen by the experimenter in the forced-choice condition). This
is called the self-choice effect (Takahashi, 1989), and many hypotheses
are proposed to explain this effect. The early research on self-choice
effects were conducted by Perlmuter, Monty, and colleagues (Monty et
al., 1973, 1979; Perlmuter & Monty, 1982). They proposed the motivation
hypothesis (Perlmuter & Eads, 1998). According to this hypothesis,
choosing a word leads to higher motivation among the participants,
leading to a higher memory performance level, and explains the
self-choice effect. However, this hypothesis had a critical problem; the
motivation index was not clarified. Hence, an increased motivation level
to facilitate memory performance in the self-chose condition could not
be demonstrated. According to Toyota (2013), since the motivation
hypothesis, others have been proposed, including the metamemory
hypothesis proposed by Takahashi (1991), the multiple-cue hypothesis by
Watanabe (2001), and connective processing by Hirano & Ukita (2003).
However, these did not sufficiently explain the self-choice effect
because rebutting evidence was observed on them.
In contrast, Toyota et al. (2007) proposed the integration
hypothesis. In their study, participants were asked to choose one word
they liked more in each word pair in a self-choice condition, whereas
one of the paired words was underlined to signify that it was favored by
another participant in a forced-choice condition. Participants were
required to indicate whether their judgment differed from the other
participants. Both a self-choice and forced-choice conditions were
followed by unexpected free recall tests. The self-choice effect (the
superiority of self-choice to forced-choice conditions) was apparent
only for the pleasant–unpleasant pair. In the pleasant–unpleasant
pair, a contrast between words in each pair was apparent; hence,
participants could choose a word by referring to the contrast between
the two words in each pair. However, in the pleasant-pleasant and
unpleasant-unpleasant combination, there was no apparent contrast
between the two words in each pair. These results were interpreted as
follows. The pleasant–unpleasant pairs gave the participants an
apparent criterion for selecting one of each pair because the pair had
an opposite value; they could easily choose the word they liked more.
Chosen words were integrated into participants’ cognitive structure and
heightened precisely and would be recalled more. In contrast, the
criterion for choosing was not apparent for the pleasant–pleasant and
unpleasant–unpleasant pairs because each word in a pair had a similar
value. Participants could not easily choose one word based on
likableness (pleasantness) or dislikeableness (unpleasantness). Thus,
Toyota et al. (2007) considered that an apparent criterion would support
the participant to integrate each chosen word into a cognitive structure
to facilitate their recall. Toyota and Kobayashi (2009), using an
intentional memory procedure, also found a self-choice effect only in
pleasant–unpleasant pairs. This finding also supports the integration
hypothesis. Initially, the word “integration” in memory was used by
Craik and Tulving (1975). They found that the words in the congruous
contexts were recalled or recognized more often than those in
incongruous contexts; the superiority of congruous contexts is called
the “congruity effect” and has been observed in several studies
(Goldman & Pellegrino, 1977; Hall & Geis, 1980; Toyota, 1996).
According to Craik and Tulving (1975), words in the congruous contexts
were integrated into the cognitive structure, but words in incongruous
contexts were not. The difference in integration led to a difference in
recall performance between congruous and incongruous contexts (Toyota,
2013).
Toyota et al. (2007) considered the self-choice effect using this
concept of integration and suggested it is caused by the degree of
integration when a word is chosen based on the participant’s criterion.
For example, in a pleasant–unpleasant pair, the chosen words can easily
integrate into a cognitive structure because the participants could
quickly choose a word based on the contrast between each word in a pair.
However, in the pleasant–pleasant and the unpleasant–unpleasant pairs,
the chosen words could not easily integrate into the cognitive structure
because the participants could not easily choose a word based on the
contrast between each word in a pair. The selection criterion would be
critical if the integration function explained the self-choice effect.
Namely, the clear instruction about the criterion for choosing a word
may lead to the self-choice effect in the pleasant–pleasant and
unpleasant–unpleasant pairs, wherein there is no contrast between each
word in a pair. Toyota (2013) used specific instruction about the
selection criterion and found the self-choice effects in both types of
pairs (pleasant-pleasant and unpleasant-unpleasant). Although the
self-choice effects were observed in both types of pairs, the
significance of its effect differed: when the participants were asked to
choose the more liked word, the self-choice effect was more significant
in pleasant-pleasant pairs than in unpleasant-unpleasant pairs, whereas
when asked to choose the more disliked word, it was more significant in
unpleasant-unpleasant pairs than in pleasant-pleasant pairs. Thus, the
self-choice effects in the congruous contexts were more significant than
in incongruous contexts. This suggests that the congruity between the
criterion of choosing (e.g., pleasantness) the word from the
alternatives and types of paired words (e.g., pleasant-pleasant pairs)
is critical. However, in Toyota’s (2013) study, the participants chose
words with a similar value of pleasantness or unpleasantness, making it
difficult for each participant to choose the more pleasant or unpleasant
words. According to Toyota (1997), many studies have indicated the
effectiveness of encoding difficulty on memory performance (Auble &
Franks, 1978; Einstein, 1976; Ellis, Thomas & Rodrguez, 1984; Jacoby,
1978; Kitao & Kaneko, 1981; Krinsky & Nelson, 1981). Toyota (1997)
indicated that difficulty in choosing a word to memorize in each word
pair facilitated the retention of chosen and non-chosen words, called
the encoding difficulty effect. Although some hypotheses explained this
effect, including mental effort (Tyler, Hertel, McCallum & Ellis,
1979), elaboration (Craik & Tulving, 1975), and distinctiveness
(Jacoby, Craik & Begg, 1979), Kitao and Kaneko (1981) explained that
such difficulty led to increased effort in elaborating the word, leading
to cues for retrieving the chosen words for elaboration and
distinctiveness (Toyota, 1997). This study used the two types of word
pairs, pleasant-neutral and unpleasant-neutral pairs, including neutral
words, to examine the effect of congruity on retention eliminating the
encoding difficulty effect.
The first hypothesis of this study is as follows. Suppose the congruity
between the criterion and the word type determined the recall
performance of the chosen word, then: if participants were asked to
choose the more pleasant word, the chosen words in pleasant–neutral
pairs would be recalled more often than those in unpleasant–neutral
pairs. In contrast, if asked to choose the more unpleasant word, the
chosen words in unpleasant–neutral pairs would be recalled more often
than those in pleasant–neutral pairs.
Baumeister et al. (2001) reviewed several psychological phenomena and
proposed the focusing notion of “negativity bias,” wherein negative
emotions or memories were recalled better than positive ones.
Specifically, unpleasant episodes elicited more robust emotional
encoding than pleasant episodes. Thus, target words associated with an
unpleasant mood are processed more deeply and intensely than those
associated with a pleasant mood. Toyota (2014) examined negativity bias
using an incidental free recall procedure, and participants with a low
ability to manage and regulate emotions recalled targets associated with
unpleasant episodes more often than those with pleasant episodes.
Although only for low ability participants, a negativity bias was
observed in incidental memory in Toyota’s (2014) study. If the
negativity bias was robust, the chosen unpleasant words in
unpleasant–neutral pairs were predicted to be recalled more often than
the chosen pleasant words in pleasant–neutral pairs. The second aim of
this study is to examine this hypothesis.
METHODS