“Survive to remember.” A novel approach to episodic memory: Adaptive memory

Why are certain words remembered better than others? To address this question, researchers studying episodic memory have been particularly interested in the encoding conditions that could enhance long-term retention. One encoding condition has recently been the subject of a large number of studies over a relatively short period, namely encoding related to a survival scenario. Nairne, Thompson and Pandeirada (2007) were the first to reveal the survival processing effect, whereby words that are processed according to their relevance in a situation in which individuals imagine themselves in a survival situation (e.g., finding food and water, protection from dangerous animals) are remembered better than those processed in encoding contexts known to lead to good long-term retention (e.g. encoding with reference to the self). In this article, we provide a comprehensive description of studies that have observed this effect, and then discuss its empirical limitations. We also consider the different interpretations of this effect, concluding with a discussion of the “survival” of researchers’ interest for this important and innovative phenomenon in research on episodic memory.