This was a more general cognitive theory based on the idea that each individual's psychological processes are influenced by the way they anticipate events.
Studies such as one by Jones, Sensenig, and Haley[5] corroborated the idea that the self has a special construct, by simply asking experiment subjects to describe their "most significant characteristics".
[6] In Japan, regarding memory, people who showed higher altruism tend not to exhibit self-reference effect.
[8] These studies were developed in hopes of determining if there are certain brain regions that can account for the encoding advantages involved in the self-reference effect.
Brain imaging studies have raised the question of whether neural activity in cortical midline regions is self-specific.
Also, in addition to their perceived role in several forms of self-representation, cortical midline structures are also involved in the processing of social relationships and recognizing personally familiar others.
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the area of the brain that is believed to be involved in the planning of complex behavior and the expression and regulation of personality characteristics in social situations.
The implication that the prefrontal cortex is involved in the regulation of unique internal personality characteristics illustrates how it may be an important component of the self-reference effect.
The medial prefrontal cortex in both hemispheres has been proposed as a site of the "self model" which is a theoretical construct made of essential features such as feelings of continuity and unity as well as experience of agency.
[11] The idea of the self-reference effect being linked to the medial prefrontal cortex stems from several experiments attempting to locate the mechanisms involved in the self-referencing process.
Experiments in which participants were assigned tasks that required them to reflect on, or introspect about their own mental states showed activity in the medial prefrontal cortex.
Similar activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is displayed in cases where participants show the memory advantage that emerges when items are encoded in a self-relevant manner.
[16] A study done in 2011 on preschoolers found that observations on children as young as three years old suggests that the self-reference effect is apparent in event memory, by their ability to self-recognize.
Consistent with this idea, it has been demonstrated that the memorial advantage afforded to self-referenced material can be diminished or eliminated when the comparison target is an intimate other such as a parent, friend, or spouse[18] The capacity for utilizing the self-reference effect remains relatively high throughout the lifespan, even well into old age.
Self-referencing improves older adult's memory, but its benefits are restricted regardless of the social and personally relevant nature of the task.
It is therefore important to understand the effects of self-reference encoding for students and beneficial ways it can increase their recall of information.
Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker (1977) performed one of the first studies examining the self-reference effect making it a foundational article.
The process behind this study was to gather students and divide them into four different task groups and they would be asked to give a yes or no answer to a trait adjective being presented to them.
When there was a greater availability of cognitive resources, the ability to enhance memory similarly for both young and older adults diverged from socioemotional processing (Gutches et al., 2007).
When students are studying, if they can see the material as an elaboration of what they already remember or can relate to personal experiences, their recall would be enhanced (Hartlep & Forsyth, 2001).
The participants who frequently chose the altruistic behavior refer to the social desirability as a backboard (Nakoa et al., 2012).
The older the subject, the more rich and vivid the memory can be due to the amount of information the brain has processed.
[23] As this advancement of encoding incoming memories is an evolutional mechanism that we the human race has inherited from the challenges faced by our ancestors.
[25] Nairne et al. (2007) noted that our advanced ability to recall past events may be to help us as a species to solve issues, which would relate to survival.
[26] However, it is important to note that researchers theorize that there is not just one kind of self-reference effect that people pose, rather a group of them for different purposes other than survival.