Mine and me: exploring the neural basis of object ownership

The ownership memory self-reference effect shifts recognition criterion but not recognition sensitivity

Information referenced to the self is retrieved more accurately than information referenced to others, known as the memory self-reference effect. It is unclear, however, whether social context (identity of the other) or task factors alter decision-making processes. In a virtual object allocation task, female participants sorted objects into their own or another's (stranger or mother) basket based on a colour cue. Subsequently, they performed a recognition memory task in which they first indicated whether each object was old or new, and then whether it had been allocated to themselves or to the other. We obtained owner-specific hit rates and false-alarm rates and applied signal detection theory to derive separate recognition sensitivity (d') and recognition criterion parameters (c) for self- and other-owned objects. While there was no clear evidence of a recognition self-reference effect, or a change in sensitivity, participants adopted a more conservative recognition criterion for self- compared with other-owned objects, and particularly when the other-referent was the participant's mother compared with the stranger. Moreover, when discriminating whether the originally presented objects were self- or other-owned, participants were biased toward ascribing ownership to the 'other'. We speculate that these findings reflect ownership-based changes in decisional processing during the recognition memory self-reference paradigm.

Is self always prioritised? Attenuating the ownership self-reference effect in memory

The current study demonstrates the abolishment of the Ownership Self Reference Effect (OSRE) when elaborate details of a distant other-referent are provided. In a 2 (High versus Low information) × 2 (Self versus Other) experimental design, we tested the capacity for the SRE to be modulated with social saliency. Using a well-established ownership paradigm (Collard et al., 2020; Cunningham et al., 2008; Sparks et al., 2016), when the other was made socially salient (i.e. details and characteristics about the other were provided to the participant prior to encoding), no SRE emerged, such that self-owned and other-owned items were recalled with comparable accuracy. In contrast, when the other was not salient (i.e., no details about them were provided), participants accurately recalled a higher proportion of self-owned items, demonstrating a typical SRE in source memory. The degree of self- or other- referencing was not related to measured variables of closeness, similarity or shared traits with the other. Although the SRE is an established and robust effect, the findings of the current study illustrate critical circumstances in which the self is no longer prioritised above the other. In line with our predictions, we suggest that the self has automatic attributed social salience (e.g. through ownership) and that enhancing social salience by elaborating details of the other, prioritisation can expand to encapsulate an other beyond the self and influence incidental memory.

A novel and effective item-source complex trial protocol: Discrimination of guilty from both knowledgeable and unknowledgeable innocent subjects

Innocent subjects who are knowledgeable of crime-related information will often be misclassified as "guilty" in P300-based complex trial protocol (CTP). Therefore, it is necessary to develop a more rigorous CTP that can effectively discriminate the guilty from both the knowledgeable and the unknowledgeable innocents. Sometimes the guilty and the knowledgeable innocents possess the same item memories but different source memories. The present study designed a novel item-source complex trial protocol based on the differences of source memory among the three kinds of individuals. Either the crime-related probe (e.g., the stolen ring) or one of the crime-unrelated stimuli (e.g., watch, earring, bracelet, or bangle) (item memory) was presented in the first part of each trail, and either a stealing-source word (e.g., stole) or other-source word (e.g., fetched) (source memory) was presented in the second part of each trail. The results showed that: (1) the P300 evoked by item memory could effectively discriminated the guilty from the unknowledgeable innocent (AUC = 0.76) but failed to effectively discriminate the guilty from the knowledgeable innocent (AUC = 0.60); (2) the late positive component evoked by source memory could effectively discriminated the guilty from both the knowledgeable innocent (AUC = 0.94) and the unknowledgeable innocent (AUC = 0.84) in one test.

Temporal expectancy induced by the mere possession of a placebo analgesic affects placebo analgesia: preliminary findings from a randomized controlled trial

Research on placebo analgesia usually shows that people experienced a reduction in pain after using a placebo analgesic. An emerging line of research argues that, under some circumstances, merely possessing (but not using) a placebo analgesic could induce placebo analgesia. The current study investigates how temporary expectation of pain reduction associated with different forms of possessing a placebo analgesic affects pain outcomes. Healthy participants (n = 90) were presented with a vial of olive oil (placebo), described as a blended essential oil that blocks pain sensations upon nasal inhalation, and were asked to anticipate the benefits of such analgesic oil to the self (such as anticipating the analgesic oil to reduce their pain). Participants were randomized into one of three different possession conditions: physical-possession condition (participants possessed a tangible placebo analgesic oil, inducing an expectation to acquire analgesic benefit early upon the experience of pain), psychological-possession condition (participants possessed a coupon, which can be redeemed for a placebo analgesic oil, inducing an expectation to acquire analgesic benefit later upon the experience of pain), or no-possession condition. Participants did a cold pressor test (CPT) to experience experimentally-induced pain on their non-dominant hand. Their objective physical pain responses (pain-threshold and pain-tolerance), and subjective psychological pain perception (pain intensity, severity, quality, and unpleasantness) were measured. Results revealed that participants in the physical-possession condition reported greater pain-threshold, F(2, 85) = 6.65, p = 0.002, and longer pain-tolerance, F(2, 85) = 7.19, p = 0.001 than participants in the psychological-possession and no-possession conditions. No significant group difference was found in subjective pain perception. The results of this study can advance knowledge about pain mechanisms and novel pain management.

Hunters and Gatherers of Pictures: Why Photography Has Become a Human Universal

Photography is ubiquitous worldwide. We analyzed why people take, share, and use personal photographs, independent of their specific cultural background. These behaviors are still poorly understood. Experimental research on them is scarce. Smartphone technology and social media have pushed the success of photography, but cannot explain it, as not all smartphone features are widely used just because they are available. We analyzed properties of human nature that have made taking and using photographs functional behaviors. We did this based on the four levels, which Nikolaas Tinbergen suggested for analyzing why animals behave in a particular way. Including findings from multiple disciplines, we developed a novel conceptual framework-the "Mental Utilization Hypothesis of Photography." It suggests that people adopt photography because it matches with core human mental mechanisms mainly from the social domain, and people use photography as a cognitive, primarily social coping strategy. Our framework comprises a range of testable predictions, provides a new theoretical basis for future empirical investigations into photography, and has practical implications. We conclude that photography has become a human universal, which is based on context-sensitive mental predispositions and differentiates itself in the social and societal environment.

It's not always about me: The effects of prior beliefs and stimulus prevalence on self-other prioritisation

Although self-relevance is widely acknowledged to enhance stimulus processing, the exclusivity of this effect remains open to question. In particular, in commonly adopted experimental paradigms, the prioritisation of self-relevant (vs. other-relevant) material may reflect the operation of a task-specific strategy rather than an obligatory facet of social-cognitive functioning. By changing basic aspects of the decisional context, it may therefore be possible to generate stimulus-prioritisation effects for targets other than the self. Based on the demonstration that ownership facilitates object categorisation (i.e., self-ownership effect), here we showed that stimulus prioritisation is sensitive to prior expectations about the prevalence of forthcoming objects (owned-by-self vs. owned-by-friend) and whether these beliefs are supported during the task. Under conditions of stimulus uncertainty (i.e., no prior beliefs), replicating previous research, objects were classified more rapidly when owned-by-self compared with owned-by-friend (Experiment 1). When, however, the frequency of stimulus presentation either confirmed (Experiment 2) or disconfirmed (Experiment 3) prior expectations, stimulus prioritisation was observed for the most prevalent objects regardless of their owner. A hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM) analysis further revealed that decisional bias was underpinned by differences in the evidential requirements of response generation. These findings underscore the flexibility of ownership effects (i.e., stimulus prioritisation) during object processing.

Self-relevance enhances evidence gathering during decision-making

Despite repeated demonstrations that self-relevant material is prioritized during stimulus appraisal, a number of unresolved issues remain. In particular, it is unclear if self-relevance facilitates task performance when stimuli are encountered under challenging processing conditions. To explore this issue, using a backward masking procedure, here participants were required to report if briefly presented objects (pencils and pens) had previously been assigned to the self or a best friend (i.e., object-ownership task). The results yielded a standard self-ownership effect, such that responses were faster and more accurate to self-owned (vs. friend-owned) objects. In addition, a drift diffusion model analysis indicated that this effect was underpinned by a stimulus bias. Specifically, evidence was accumulated more rapidly from self-owned compared to friend-owned stimuli. These findings further elucidate the extent and origin of self-prioritization during decisional processing.

Neural mechanisms supporting emotional and self-referential information processing and encoding in older and younger adults

Emotion and self-referential information can both enhance memory, but whether they do so via common mechanisms across the adult lifespan remains underexplored. To address this gap, the current study directly compared, within the same fMRI paradigm, the encoding of emotionally salient and self-referential information in older adults and younger adults. Behavioral results replicated the typical patterns of better memory for emotional than neutral information and for self-referential than non-self-referential materials; these memory enhancements were present for younger and older adults. In neural activity, young and older adults showed similar modulation by emotion, but there were substantial age differences in the way self-referential processing affected neural recruitment. Contrary to our hypothesis, we found little evidence for overlap in the neural mechanisms engaged for emotional and self-referential processing. These results reveal that-just as in cognitive domains-older adults can show similar performance to younger adults in socioemotional domains even though the two age groups engage distinct neural mechanisms. These findings demonstrate the need for future research delving into the neural mechanisms supporting older adults' memory benefits for socioemotional material.

It is not in the details: Self-related shapes are rapidly classified but their features are not better remembered

Self-prioritization is a robust phenomenon whereby judgments concerning self-representational stimuli are faster than judgments toward other stimuli. The present paper examines if and how self-prioritization causes more vivid short-term memories for self-related objects by giving geometric shapes arbitrary identities (self, mother, stranger). In Experiment 1 participants were presented with an array of the three shapes and required to retain the location and color of each in memory. Participants were then probed regarding the identity of one of the shapes and subsequently asked to indicate the color of the probed shape or an unprobed shape on a color wheel. Results indicated no benefit for self-stimuli in either response time for the identification probe or for color fidelity in memory. Yet, a cuing benefit was observed such that the cued stimulus in the identity probe did have higher fidelity within memory. Experiments 2 and 3 reduced the cognitive load by only requiring that participants process the identity and color of one shape at a time. For Experiment 2, the identity probe was memory-based, whereas the stimulus was presented alongside the identity probe for Experiment 3. Results demonstrated a robust self-prioritization effect: self-related shapes were classified faster than non-self-shapes, but this self-advantage did not lead to an increase in the fidelity of memory for self-related shapes’ colors. Overall, these results suggest that self-prioritization effects may be restricted to an improvement in the ability to recognize that the self-representational stimulus is present without devoting more perceptual and short-term memory resources to such stimuli.

The relationship between endowment and ownership effects in memory across cultures

An object one owns is typically more highly valued than an equivalent object owned by another person. This endowment effect has been attributed to the aversion of loss of one's possessions (through selling), or the added value of an item due to self-association (through owning). To date, investigation of these mechanisms has been hampered by the between-subjects methodology traditionally employed to measure endowment. Over two experiments, we report a novel within-subjects method for measuring an endowment bias. In these studies, Western participants showed enhanced valuation of owned items, whereas East-Asian participants did not. This endowment bias also correlated with the ownership effect in memory (a measure of self-referential processing) in Western, but not East-Asian participants. Our results suggest that the endowment effect is partly predicated on the same factors that influence the ownership effect and that this commonality is likely linked to conceptions of ownership specifically, and self-concept more generally.

Ecologizing Social Psychology: The Physical Environment as a Necessary Constituent of Social Processes

Recent trends in social psychology point to increased interest in extending current theories by better incorporating the body (e.g., embodied cognition) and the broader interpersonal context (e.g., situations). However, despite being a critical component in early social theorizing, the physical environment remains in large part underdeveloped in most research programs. In this article, I outline an ecological framework for understanding the person-environment relationship. After introducing this perspective, I describe how this approach helps reveal the critical role played by the physical environment in a variety of social processes, including childhood development, interpersonal relationships, and social identity. Finally, I review a topic in environmental psychology that has received little attention among social psychologists: territories. I provide an ecological perspective on how the design, use, and personalization of this type of environment guide and constrain regulatory processes involving social behavior, identity expression, and emotional experience.

Control the source: Source memory for semantic, spatial and self-related items in patients with LIFG lesions

Patients with multimodal semantic deficits following stroke ('semantic aphasia') have largely intact knowledge, yet difficulty controlling conceptual retrieval to suit the circumstances. Although conceptual representations are thought to be largely distinct from episodic representations of recent events, controlled retrieval processes may overlap across semantic and episodic memory domains. We investigated this possibility by examining item familiarity and source memory for recent events in semantic aphasia following infarcts affecting left inferior frontal gyrus. We tested the hypothesis that the nature of impairment in episodic judgements reflects the need for control over retrieval: item familiarity might be relatively intact, given it is driven by strong cues (re-presentation of the item), while source recollection might be more impaired since this task involves resolving competition between several potential sources. This pattern was observed most strongly when the degree of competition between sources was higher, i.e., when non-meaningful sources had similar perceptual features, and existing knowledge was incongruent with the source. In contrast, when (i) spatial location acted as a strong cue for retrieval; (ii) existing knowledge was congruent with episodic memory and (iii) distinctiveness of sources was increased by means of self-referential processing, source memory reached normal levels. These findings confirm the association between deregulated control of semantic and episodic memory in patients with semantic aphasia and delineate circumstances that ameliorate or aggravate these deficits.

Neural mechanisms for learning self and other ownership

Sense of ownership is a ubiquitous and fundamental aspect of human cognition. Here we used model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging and a novel minimal ownership paradigm to probe the behavioural and neural mechanisms underpinning ownership acquisition for ourselves, friends and strangers. We find a self-ownership bias at multiple levels of behaviour from initial preferences to reaction times and computational learning rates. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and anterior cingulate sulcus (ACCs) responded more to self vs. stranger associations, but despite a pervasive neural bias to track self-ownership, no brain area tracked self-ownership exclusively. However, ACC gyrus (ACCg) specifically coded ownership prediction errors for strangers and ownership associative strength for friends and strangers but not for self. Core neural mechanisms for associative learning are biased to learn in reference to self but also engaged when learning in reference to others. In contrast, ACC gyrus exhibits specialization for learning about others.

Design for an Art Therapy Robot: An Explorative Review of the Theoretical Foundations for Engaging in Emotional and Creative Painting with a Robot

Social robots are being designed to help support people’s well-being in domestic and public environments. To address increasing incidences of psychological and emotional difficulties such as loneliness, and a shortage of human healthcare workers, we believe that robots will also play a useful role in engaging with people in therapy, on an emotional and creative level, e.g., in music, drama, playing, and art therapy. Here, we focus on the latter case, on an autonomous robot capable of painting with a person. A challenge is that the theoretical foundations are highly complex; we are only just beginning ourselves to understand emotions and creativity in human science, which have been described as highly important challenges in artificial intelligence. To gain insight, we review some of the literature on robots used for therapy and art, potential strategies for interacting, and mechanisms for expressing emotions and creativity. In doing so, we also suggest the usefulness of the responsive art approach as a starting point for art therapy robots, describe a perceived gap between our understanding of emotions in human science and what is currently typically being addressed in engineering studies, and identify some potential ethical pitfalls and solutions for avoiding them. Based on our arguments, we propose a design for an art therapy robot, also discussing a simplified prototype implementation, toward informing future work in the area.

I before U: Temporal order judgements reveal bias for self-owned objects

A multitude of studies demonstrate that self-relevant stimuli influence attention. Self-owned objects are a special class of self-relevant stimuli. If a self-owned object can indeed be characterised as a self-relevant stimulus then, consistent with theoretical predictions, a behavioural effect of ownership on attention should be present. To test this prediction, a task was selected that is known to be particularly sensitive measure of the prioritisation of visual information: the temporal order judgement. Participants completed temporal order judgements with pictures of "own" and "experimenter" owned objects (mugs) presented on either side of a central fixation cross. There was a variable onset delay between each picture, ranging between 0 ms and 105 ms, and participants were asked to indicate which mug appeared first. The results indicated a reliable change in the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) in favour of their own mug. Such a change in the PSS was not observed for two groups of participants who were exposed to a mug but did not keep the mug. A further experiment indicated that the source of the bias in PSS was more consistent with a criterion shift or top-down attentional prioritisation rather than a perceptual bias. These findings suggest that ownership, beyond mere-touch, mere-choice, or familiarity, leads to prioritised processing and responses, but the mechanism underlying the effect is not likely to be perceptual in nature.

The Self-Reference Effect on Perception: Undiminished in Adults with Autism and No Relation to Autism Traits

Memory for (and perception of) information about the self is superior to memory for (and perception of) other kinds of information. This self-reference effect (SRE) in memory appears diminished in ASD and related to the number of ASD traits manifested by neurotypical individuals (fewer traits = larger SRE). Here, we report the first experiments exploring the relation between ASD and the SRE in perception. Using a "Shapes" Task (Sui et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38, 1105, 2012), participants learned to associate three different shapes (triangle, circle, square) with three different labels representing self, a familiar other, or an unfamiliar other (e.g., "you", "mother", "stranger"). Participants then completed trials during which they were presented with one shape and one label for 100 ms, and made judgments about whether the shape and label was a match. In Experiment 1, neurotypical participants (n = 124) showed the expected SRE, detecting self-related matches more reliably and quickly than matches involving familiar or unfamiliar other. Most important, number of ASD traits was unrelated to the size of the SRE for either accuracy or RT. Bayesian association analyses strongly supported the null hypothesis. In Experiment 2, there were no differences between 22 adults with ASD and 21 matched comparison adults in performance on the Shapes Task. Despite showing large and significant theory of mind impairments, participants with ASD showed the typical SRE and there were no associations with ASD traits in either group. In every case, Bayesian analyses favored the null hypothesis. These findings challenge theories about self-representation in ASD, as discussed in the article. Autism Res 2018, 11: 331-341. © 2017 The Authors Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

LAY SUMMARY

Neurotypical people tend to find it easier to perceive and remember information that relates to themselves than information that relates to others. Research suggests that people with ASD show a diminished (or absent) self-bias in memory and that severity of ASD predicts the extent of this diminution (more severe ASD = smaller self-bias in memory). However, the current research suggests strongly that people with ASD do show a self-bias in their perception. This research informs our understanding of psychological functioning in ASD and challenges theories regarding self-awareness in this disorder.

Self-bias modulates saccadic control

We present novel data on the role of attention in eliciting enhanced processing of stimuli associated with self. Participants were required to make pro- or anti-saccades according to whether learned shape–label pairings matched or mismatched. When stimuli matched participants were required to make an anti-saccade, and when the stimuli mismatched a pro-saccade was required. We found that anti-saccades were difficult to make to stimuli associated with self when compared to stimuli associated with a friend and a stranger. In contrast, anti-saccades to friend-stimuli were easier to make than anti-saccades to stranger-stimuli. In addition, a correct anti-saccade to a self-associated stimulus disrupted subsequent pro-saccade trials, relative to when the preceding anti-saccade was made to other stimuli. The data indicate that self-associated stimuli provide a strong cue for explicit shifts of attention to them, and that correct anti-saccades to such stimuli demand high levels of inhibition (which carries over to subsequent pro-saccade trials). The self exerts an automatic draw on attention.

Cues of control modulate the ascription of object ownership

Knowing whether an object is owned and by whom is essential to avoid costly conflicts. We hypothesize that everyday interactions around objects are influenced by a minimal sense of object ownership grounded on respect of possession. In particular, we hypothesize that tracking object ownership can be influenced by any cue that predicts the establishment of individual physical control over objects. To test this hypothesis we used an indirect method to determine whether visual cues of physical control like spatial proximity to an object, temporal priority in seeing it, and touching it influence this minimal sense of object ownership. In Experiment 1 participants were shown a neutral object located on a table, in the reaching space of one of two characters. In Experiment 2 one character was the first to find the object then another character appeared and saw the object. In Experiments 3 and 4, spatial proximity, temporal priority, and touch are pitted against each other to assess their relative weight. After having seen the scenes, participants were required to judge the sensibility of sentences in which ownership of the object was ascribed to one of the two characters. Responses were faster when the objects were located in the reaching space of the character to whom ownership was ascribed in the sentence and when ownership was ascribed to the character who was the first to find the object. When contrasting the relevant cues, results indicate that touch is stronger than temporal priority in modulating the ascription of object ownership. However, all these effects were also influenced by contextual social cues like the gender of both characters and participants, the presence of a third-party observer, and the co-presence of characters. Consistently with our hypothesis, results indicate that many different cues of physical control influence the ascription of ownership in daily social contexts.

SOAP Opera: Self as Object and Agent in Prioritizing Attention

A growing body of evidence has demonstrated that multiple sources of salience tune attentional sets toward aspects of the environment, including affectively and motivationally significant categories of stimuli such as angry faces and reward-associated target locations. Recent evidence further indicates that objects that have gained personal significance through ownership can elicit similar attentional prioritization. Here we discuss current research on sources of attentional prioritization that shape our awareness of the visual world from moment to moment and the underlying neural systems and contextualize what is known about attentional prioritization of our possessions within that research. We review behavioral and neuroimaging research on the influence of self-relevance and ownership on cognition and discuss challenges to this literature stemming from different modes of conceptualizing and operationalizing the self. We argue that ownership taps into both “self-as-object,” which characterizes the self as an object with a constellation of traits and attributes, and “self-as-subject,” which characterizes the self as an agentic perceiver and knower. Despite an abundance of research probing neural and behavioral indices of self-as-object and its effects on attention, there exists a paucity of research on the influence of self-relevance of attention when self is operationalized from the perspective of a first-person subject. To begin to address this gap, we propose the Self as Ownership in Attentional Prioritization (SOAP) framework to explain how ownership increases salience through attention to external representations of self-identity (i.e., self as object) and attention to contextually mediated permission to act (i.e., self as subject).

How "mere" is the mere ownership effect in memory? Evidence for semantic organization processes

Memory is better for items arbitrarily assigned to the self than for items assigned to another person (mere ownership effect, MOE). In a series of six experiments, we investigated the role of semantic processes for the MOE. Following successful replication, we investigated whether the MOE was contingent upon semantic processing: For meaningless stimuli, there was no MOE. Testing for a potential role of semantic elaboration using meaningful stimuli in an encoding task without verbal labels, we found evidence of spontaneous semantic processing irrespective of self- or other-assignment. When semantic organization was manipulated, the MOE vanished if a semantic classification task was added to the self/other assignment but persisted for a perceptual classification task. Furthermore, we found greater clustering of self-assigned than of other-assigned items in free recall. Taken together, these results suggest that the MOE could be based on the organizational principle of a "me" versus "not-me" categorization.

We are more selfish than we think: The endowment effect and reward processing within the human medial-frontal cortex

Perceived ownership has been shown to impact a variety of cognitive processes: attention, memory, and--more recently--reward processing. In the present experiment we examined whether or not perceived ownership would interact with the construct of value-the relative worth of an object. Participants completed a simple gambling game in which they gambled either for themselves or for another while electroencephalographic data were recorded. In a key manipulation, gambles for oneself or for another were for either small or large rewards. We tested the hypothesis that value affects the neural response to self-gamble outcomes, but not other-gamble outcomes. Our experimental data revealed that while participants learned the correct response option for both self and other gambles, the reward positivity evoked by wins was impacted by value only when gambling for oneself. Importantly, our findings provide additional evidence for a self-ownership bias in cognitive processing and further demonstrate the insensitivity of the medial-frontal reward system to gambles for another.

Explanations of the endowment effect: an integrative review

The endowment effect is the tendency for people who own a good to value it more than people who do not. Its economic impact is consequential. It creates market inefficiencies and irregularities in valuation such as differences between buyers and sellers, reluctance to trade, and mere ownership effects. Traditionally, the endowment effect has been attributed to loss aversion causing sellers of a good to value it more than buyers. New theories and findings--some inconsistent with loss aversion--suggest evolutionary, strategic, and more basic cognitive origins. In an integrative review, we propose that all three major instantiations of the endowment effect are attributable to exogenously and endogenously induced cognitive frames that bias which information is accessible during valuation.

Actor-recipient role affects neural responses to self in emotional situations

People often take either the role of an actor or that of recipient in positive and negative interpersonal events when they interact with others. The present study investigated how the actor-recipient role affected the neural responses to self in emotional situations. Twenty-five participants were scanned while they were presented with positive and negative interpersonal events and were asked to rate the degree to which the actor/the recipient was that kind of person who caused the interpersonal event. Half of the trials were self-relevant events and the other half were other-relevant events. Results showed that people were more likely to isolate self from negative events when they played the role of actor relative to recipient. Pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC) and posterior dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (pdACC) were more active for self than other only in negative events. More importantly, also in negative interpersonal events, dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) showed greater self-related activations (self-other) when participants played the role of recipient relative to actor, while activities in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) were greater for self than other only when the evaluation target played the role of recipient. These results showed that the actor-recipient role affected neural responses to self in emotional situations, especially when a recipient role was played in negative situations.

Age differences in self-referencing: Evidence for common and distinct encoding strategies

Although engagement of medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) underlies self-referencing of information for younger and older adults, the region has not consistently been implicated across age groups for the encoding of self-referenced information. We sought to determine whether making judgments about others as well as the self influenced findings in the previous study. During an fMRI session, younger and older adults encoded adjectives using only a self-reference task. For items later remembered compared to those later forgotten, both age groups robustly recruited medial prefrontal cortex, indicating common neural regions support encoding across younger and older adults when participants make only self-reference judgments. Focal age differences emerged in regions related to emotional processing and cognitive control, though these differences are more limited than in tasks in which judgments also are made about others. We conclude that making judgments about another person differently affects the ways that younger and older adults make judgments about the self, with results of a follow-up behavioral study supporting this interpretation. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Memory and Aging.

Tracking the actions and possessions of agents

We propose that there is a powerful human disposition to track the actions and possessions of agents. In two experiments, 3-year-olds and adults viewed sets of objects, learned a new fact about one of the objects in each set (either that it belonged to the participant, or that it possessed a particular label), and were queried about either the taught fact or an unrelated dimension (preference) immediately after a spatiotemporal transformation, and after a delay. Adults uniformly tracked object identity under all conditions, whereas children tracked identity more when taught ownership versus labeling information, and only regarding the taught fact (not the unrelated dimension). These findings suggest that the special attention that children and adults pay to agents readily extends to include inanimate objects. That young children track an object's history, despite their reliance on surface features on many cognitive tasks, suggests that unobservable historical features are foundational in human cognition.

Extended self: spontaneous activation of medial prefrontal cortex by objects that are 'mine'

The concept of extended self refers to the idea that people incorporate self-relevant others or objects into one's sense of self. Initial neural support for the notion of extended self was provided by fMRI evidence that medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) showed greater activation while people imagined objects belonging to them compared with someone else (Kim & Johnson, 2012). This study investigated whether self-associated objects (i.e. 'mine') subsequently engage MPFC spontaneously when a task does not require explicit self-referential judgments. During fMRI scanning, participants detected 'oddballs' (objects with a specific frame color) intermixed with objects participants had previously imagined belonging to them or to someone else and previously unseen non-oddball objects. There was greater activity in MPFC and posterior cingulate cortex for those 'self-owned' objects that participants were more successful at imagining owning compared with 'other-owned' objects. In addition, change in object preference following the ownership manipulation (a mere ownership effect) was predicted by activity in MPFC. Overall, these results provide neural evidence for the idea that personally relevant external stimuli may be incorporated into one's sense of self.

Body ownership and beyond: connections between cognitive neuroscience and linguistic typology

During the past few decades, two disciplines that rarely come together-namely, cognitive neuroscience and linguistic typology-have been generating remarkably similar results regarding the representational domain of personal possessions. Research in cognitive neuroscience indicates that although the core self is grounded in body ownership, the extended self encompasses a variety of noncorporeal possessions, especially those that play a key role in defining one's identity. And research in linguistic typology indicates that many languages around the world contain a distinct grammatical construction for encoding what is commonly called "inalienable" possession-a category of owned objects that almost always includes body parts, but that also tends to include several other kinds of personally relevant entities. Both of these independent lines of investigation are summarized, and a number of interdisciplinary connections between them are discussed.

Self-referential processing is distinct from semantic elaboration: evidence from long-term memory effects in a patient with amnesia and semantic impairments

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.

The self-reference effect on memory in early childhood

The self-reference effect in memory is the advantage for information encoded about self, relative to other people. The early development of this effect was explored here using a concrete encoding paradigm. Trials comprised presentation of a self- or other-image paired with a concrete object. In Study 1, 4- to 6-year-old children (N = 53) were asked in each trial whether the child pictured would like the object. Recognition memory showed an advantage for self-paired objects. Study 2 (N = 55) replicated this finding in source memory. In Study 3 (N = 56), participants simply indicated object location. Again, recognition and source memory showed an advantage for self-paired items. These findings are discussed with reference to mechanisms that ensure information of potential self-relevance is reliably encoded.

Survival of the selfish: contrasting self-referential and survival-based encoding

Processing information in the context of personal survival scenarios elicits a memory advantage, relative to other rich encoding conditions such as self-referencing. However, previous research is unable to distinguish between the influence of survival and self-reference because personal survival is a self-referent encoding context. To resolve this issue, participants in the current study processed items in the context of their own survival and a familiar other person's survival, as well as in a semantic context. Recognition memory for the items revealed that personal survival elicited a memory advantage relative to semantic encoding, whereas other-survival did not. These findings reinforce suggestions that the survival effect is closely tied with self-referential encoding, ensuring that fitness information of potential importance to self is successfully retained in memory.

Exploring early self-referential memory effects through ownership

The self-reference effect (SRE) is the reliable memory advantage for information encoded about self over material encoded about other people. The developmental pathway of the SRE has proved difficult to chart, because the standard SRE task is unsuitable for young children. The current inquiry was designed to address this issue using an ownership paradigm, as encoding objects in the context of self-ownership have been shown to elicit self-referential memory advantages in adults. Pairs of 4- to 6-year-old children (n = 64) sorted toy pictures into self- and other-owned sets. A surprise recognition memory test revealed a significant advantage for toys owned by self, which decreased with age. Neither verbal ability nor theory of mind attainment predicted the size of the memory advantage for self-owned items. This finding suggests that contrary to some previous reports, memory in early childhood can be shaped by the same self-referential biases that pervade adult cognition.