Survival processing posits that our memories become enhanced when faced with a survival situation. The current study investigates how the survival processing effect is influenced by two memory processes well-known for enhancing memory, the self-referential effect and cueing.

One key question that can be posed is whether self survival provides a richer ("deeper") memory cue than imagining survival of an other (a third person). Depth of processing in relation to the participants' (self vs. other) perspective is manipulated to understand the role perspective and the self-referential effect play in the survival processing advantage.

The current study found that indeed the self survival scenario does provide a significantly better memory cue than the third person "other" perspectives. This highlights the possibility that the survival processing advantage is not a unique process so much as the combination of other known processes.