Exploring Empathy As a Potential Mechanism Promoting Concurrent Retrieval

Abstract

In social contexts, conversations contain many cues that can elicit the retrieval of selective memories. The memories people come to hold are ultimately shaped as a result of these conversations. We are interested in the cognitive dimension of empathy and whether it can facilitate a change in mnemonic representations following conversational remembering. Participants had to fill out questionnaires regarding shared experiences every Princeton student has had (e.g. freshman year orientation) and then listened to two Princeton students recount similar experiences. Half of the participants listened with empathy and the second half were told to listen objectively. Participants completed a True/False recognition task with statements regarding their own autobiographical memories. After listening, items mentioned in the stories did not have shorter reaction times than unmentioned items, suggesting the lack of a significant facilitation effect. We also did not see a difference in memory facilitation between low and high empathy groups. Similar results were found for the confidence and vividness ratings participants gave their memories before and after listening to a Speaker.