The importance of considering familiarity when studying the ‘self’

(Blog by Letizia Amodeo)

We all once experienced that situation where we noticed our name being mentioned in a conversation we were not engaging in, almost as if this word ‘popped up’ from the background. Similarly, we are faster at finding our own name than that of another person when going through a list of names. We are also better at remembering traits that are relevant to ourselves rather than to others. Indeed, studies show that both at the cognitive and at the neural level, information that relates to ourselves has priority over other-related information. Researchers often refer to this effect as the “self-bias” or “egocentric bias”. Paying more attention to what is relevant to the self rather than others is adaptively important, as it can convey crucial information for one’s own survival.

A relevant aspect to consider when it comes to studying the ‘self’ is familiarity. For example, our own name is critically linked to ourselves, but is also a highly familiar word to us. How many times did you hear your own name, because someone called you? How many times have you seen it, in a work email or a WhatsApp message? Too many times to keep track of! This makes information that relates to ourselves – such as our own name – highly familiar. Similarly to self-related information, familiar material also seems to be more accurately perceived, learned and remembered than non-familiar information. But then, how can we be sure that the bias towards self-related material stems from the relevance and uniqueness of this kind of information, rather than from the mere effect of familiarity?

To better disentangle this, researchers previously studying the self-bias designed experiments that included both self- and familiar-other information. For instance, to examine the ability of a participant in finding their own name in a list of names, researchers also tested their ability in finding the name of a ‘close other’ (a partner, relative or friend of the participant) within the same list. However, not all studies included a ‘close other’ condition in their experimental design. When interpreting findings from such studies, it is therefore difficult to distinguish biases that are ‘self-specific’ from those due to familiarity.

Our investigation aimed to test whether two well-established cognitive effects (namely, our blindness for repeated words and how quickly we can name the color in which a word is printed) were different for one’s own as compared to a close other’s name. Secondly, since earlier studies showed the self-bias to be diminished in relation to autism characteristics, we also wanted to explore whether any found self-bias was associated with such traits. In an online procedure, we asked 82 adults to complete two tasks involving the aforementioned effects, while being presented with either their own name or that of a ‘close other’. Participants were also asked to fill in two questionnaires measuring the level of autism traits. Results showed no ‘self-specific’ bias on either task. Indeed, none of the two cognitive phenomena significantly change when the participants’ own name was shown as compared to that of a friend, partner or relative that was close to them. We also found no relationship between the self-bias and autism traits as assessed by the questionnaires filled in by participants.

Our study addresses an important aspect that is often overlooked in this field of research; namely, the role played by familiarity in the impact of self-related information on the human mind. Based on these findings, we exhort researchers to be cautious when studying the self-bias in the absence of a close other condition. Under such circumstances, can any effect really be attributed to the ‘uniqueness’ of the self?

You can read the full paper here.