Transactive memory
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What is Transactive Memory
Transactive memory is a process by which two or more people in a group develop a shared system for encoding, storing, and retrieving information where each person is responsible for memorizing only part of the total information. (Wegner., 1987)
Benefits
The members of a group are able to use the other members as an external memory storage system, much like a computer uses an external hard drive to store information it cannot hold itself. As a result, groups tend to perform better than individual group members would on their own (Wegner et al., 1991), because the group memory system can hold much more information than any one individual could remember on his/her own.
Group members are also able to share the burden of remembering particular information. This division of labor eases the cognitive workload of the group members. (Hollingshead & Brandon., 2003) In addition responsibility for information can be given to those who best understand and remember it. By allocating responsibilities to those best suited, the group can improve encoding, storage, and recall, therefore improving their performance on other tasks that utilize this group knowledge. (Hollingshead & Brandon., 2003)
How it Works
Development
As the members of a group get to know each other, they may learn what information is actually stored in the other members’ memories. It is, therefore, important for people to update and improve their transactive memory systems over time to make them more accurate and efficient. There are three ways for people to improve their directories of others’ domains of knowledge. (Wegner et al., 1991)
The first way to improve the memory system is to allocate responsibilities. Members of the group often accept responsibility for certain areas of knowledge. For example in a married couple the husband may take responsibility for the couple’s bills. The wife will then look to her husband when she needs information about their finances.
The second method is to rely on group members’ areas of relative expertise. If one member of the group is perceived as an expert in an area of knowledge or knows more than the other members, the others will generally expect this person to store information in this domain.
Communicated updates are the third method of improvement. In order for transactive memory to develop over time, those in a group must update each other of new information they have learned or new areas of their knowledge. Additionally, those members that have had the most exposure to information, the most recent exposure, or were exposed to information first, are generally assumed to be the best source in the group for that information.
Transactive Memory in Couples
Couples that have known each other for a longer period of time usually automatically know what information will fall under their partner’s and their own responsibility to remember. (Hollingshead & Brandon., 2003)
Disadvantages
A couple’s transactive memory can be interrupted if an organizational strategy is imposed on them. For example, if one person always remembers financial information and they are assigned to remember cooking information (which the other partner normally remembers), they will not be as efficient at remembering cooking information as their partner would be. They are much better at storing information in their implicitly understood structure that has formed naturally over the course of their relationship.
Furthermore if the couple should break-up, each partner can be at a disadvantage because they no longer have access to the information their partner was responsible for. For example if one partner did all the cooking, the other may not be able to cook anything when on his/her own after the break-up.
Studies
Wegner, Raymond, and Erber (1991)
The Experiment
The subjects were 59 heterosexual dating couples who had been together for at least 3 months. Pairs consisting of either partners or strangers were given a memory task. They were first exposed to information from various categories. They were then told that they would be able to conduct the recall task as a pair. Pairs were either told to share the memory task with each partner given arbitrary categories of expertise or not given any instruction on how to store information.
Results
The impromptu couples did better at recall when areas of expertise were assigned (30 items recalled), whereas the natural couples did poorly when expertise was assigned (23 items). Their natural memory system was interrupted when they were given responsibility for information that generally fell into their partner’s responsibilities. Natural couples did best when they were not assigned expertise (32 items), the impromptu couples only recalled 27 items when not assigned areas of expertise.
When the individuals of the couples had their own recall tested it was found that couples did not have much overlapping memory. They tended to each remember things that the other person did not (i.e., non-overlapping memory.)
The length of the couples’ relationships did not affect the efficiency of their transactive memory. It appeared that a minimal level of transactive memory is achieved rapidly in a relationship. However, when a partner was reminded of their particular area of responsibility their memory performance in that area suffered. This mostly happened when the area of responsibility had previously been implicit, not assigned. It may be that making them conscious of a previously natural activity disrupted their performance.
Hollingshead and Brandon (2003)
The Experiment
Hollingshead added to Wegner’s experiment by manipulating whether or not the pairs could communicate while performing the tasks.
Results
Communication aided the memory system of impromptu pairs. Partners were able to recall more information collectively if they were allowed to talk during the encoding process. They were able to learn about each other’s areas of knowledge and allocate responsibility.
Communication during the task negatively affected the recall performance of dating couples. They attempted to develop new strategies that were not as efficient as their naturally occurring transactive memory system.
If the couples were allowed to talk during the retrieval task, dating couples performed better. The dating couples were better at cueing each other to remember certain information.
Communication had the greatest effects on performance when it was allowed both at the encoding and the retrieval phase.
Analysis
Almost all studies of Transactive Memory Systems have proven the systems to exist. Couples or those in close relationships consistently perform better than people in random pairs on almost all memory tasks when not using an explicitly assigned system. Additionally, almost all studies also show that couples with transactive memory systems perform worse than random pairs when assigned a memorization system that is different than their implicit system. This shows that the couples are not naturally smarter, but only perform better on memory tasks when working together without interference. All of this data conclusively states that Transactive Memory Systems exist.
