Divergent Thinking in Survival Processing: Did Our Ancestors Benefit From Creative Thinking?

The survival processing advantage is a robust mnemonic device in which information processed for its relevance to one’s survival is subsequently better remembered. Research indicates that elaborative processing may be a key component underlying this memory effect, and that this mechanism resembles divergent thinking, whereby words with a greater number of creative uses in a given scenario are better remembered. If this particular function underpins adaptive memory, then individual differences in creativity may play a part in the degree to which people benefit from this advantage. We expected that highly creative individuals who engage more in divergent thinking would not necessarily benefit to a greater degree than less creative individuals, due to potential redundant processing. In this between-subjects experiment, participants rated words according to their relevance to the typical grasslands survival scenario or according to their pleasantness (a control common to the survival paradigm and known to enhance memory). While we did find a main effect of both condition (survival v. pleasantness) and creativity (high v. low), there was no interaction. This set of findings suggests that creative individuals may not benefit to a greater degree in survival processing, despite their ability to think divergently.

Adaptive Memory: Independent Effects of Survival Processing and Reward Motivation on Memory

Humans preferentially remember information processed for their survival relevance, a memorial benefit known as the survival processing effect. Memory is also biased towards information associated with the prospect of reward. Given the adaptiveness of these effects, they may depend on similar mechanisms. We tested whether motivation drives both effects, with reward incentives that are known to boost extrinsic motivation and survival processing perhaps stimulating intrinsic motivation. Accordingly, we manipulated survival processing and reward incentive independently during an incidental-encoding task in which participants chose between pairs of words concerning their relevance for a scenario, and examined the effects on encoding event-related potentials (ERP) activity and later performance on a surprise recall test. We hypothesized that if survival processing fosters intrinsic motivation, it should reduce the beneficial effects of extrinsic motivation (reward incentive). In contrast to this prediction, we found that reward incentive and survival processing independently improved memory and that the P300, a measure of lower-level cognitive resource allocation, was increased by reward incentive independent of survival processing. Further, survival processing and reward incentive independently increased the frontal slow wave (FSW), a measure of higher-level elaboration. These findings suggest that while survival processing and reward incentive may both increase encoding elaboration, the memory-enhancing effect of survival processing does not depend on increased intrinsic motivation. Additionally, we replicated a recent finding whereby the survival processing effect generalizes to a choice-based encoding task and further showed that the beneficial effect of choice on memory likely does not interact with either survival processing or reward.

How can I use it? The role of functional fixedness in the survival-processing paradigm

After imagining being stranded in the grasslands of a foreign land without any basic survival material and rating objects with respect to their relevance in this situation, participants show superior memory performance for these objects compared to a control scenario. A possible mechanism responsible for this memory advantage is the richness and distinctiveness with which information is encoded in the survival-scenario condition. When confronted with the unusual task of thinking about how an object can be used in a life-threatening context, participants will most likely consider both common and uncommon (i.e., novel) functions of this object. These ideas about potential functions may later serve as powerful retrieval cues that boost memory performance. We argue that objects differ in their potential to be used as novel, creative survival tools. Some objects may be low in functional fixedness, meaning that it is possible to use them in many different ways. Other objects, in contrast, may be high in functional fixedness, meaning that the possibilities to use them in non-standard ways is limited. We tested experimentally whether functional fixedness of objects moderates the strength of the survival-processing advantage compared to a moving control scenario. As predicted, we observed an interaction of the functional fixedness level with scenario type: The survival-processing memory advantage was more pronounced for objects low in functional fixedness compared to those high in functional fixedness. These results are in line with the richness-of-encoding explanation of the survival-processing advantage.