In search of the proximal cause of the animacy effect on memory: Attentional resource allocation and semantic representations

People recall and recognize animate words better than inanimate words, perhaps because memory systems were shaped by evolution to prioritize memory for predators, people, and food sources. Attentional paradigms show an animacy advantage that suggests that the animacy advantage in memory stems from a prioritization of animate items when allocating attentional resources during encoding. According to the attentional prioritization hypothesis, the animacy effect should be even larger when attention is divided during encoding. Alternatively, the animacy effect could be due to more controlled processing during encoding, and so should be reduced when attention is divided during encoding. We tested the attentional prioritization hypothesis and the controlled processing hypothesis by manipulating attention during encoding in free recall (Experiment 1) and recognition (Experiment 2) but failed to find interactions between word type and attentional load in either free recall or recognition, contrary to the predictions from both hypotheses. We then tested whether the semantic representations of animate and inanimate items differ in terms of number of semantic features, using existing recall data from an item-level megastudy by Lau, Goh, and Yap (Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71 (10), 2207-2222, 2018). Animate items have more semantic features, which partially mediated the relationship between animacy status and recall.

Automated summary

A study found that people are better at recalling and recognizing animate words compared to inanimate words, possibly due to memory systems prioritizing predators, humans, and food sources during evolution. However, interactions between word type and attentional load were not found in the experiments.