Josefa Pandeirada

Josefa Pandeirada’s research has been driven by a fundamental question: “what is memory for?” The search for answers has been rooted in a functional perspective and inspired by evolutionary psychology. In particular, memory functioning has been exploited in the context of some of the adaptive problems humans encountered throughout evolution (e.g., survival, infections, reproduction) which likely shaped the way memory works. Empirical evidence has been collected over the last 17 years that led to the proposal of a set of mnemonic phenomena.
One such phenomenon is the survival processing effect, which elucidates the heightened retention of information processed within the context of survival scenarios. Additionally, the animacy effect highlights the superior recall of animate entities over inanimate ones, reflecting the significant role these entities play in our lives, whether as predators, prey, potential mates, or rivals. Moreover, individuals demonstrate enhanced memory retention when confronted with potential sources of contamination, a phenomenon that has been termed the contamination effect. This adaptive response is theorized to stem from the survival advantages gained from retaining information such information in order to avoid them. Furthermore, memory also seems to work better (particularly for faces) when the to-be-remembered information was previously contextualized in a reproduction context.
These phenomena integrate the general Adaptive Memory Framework, which not only sheds light on existing phenomena but also serves as a catalyst for the exploration of novel mnemonic tunings, fostering continued advancements in the field of cognitive science.