Education

Why Children Learn Better as the Hero 『The Self Reference Effect』

We remember information about ourselves better. How the self reference effect shows up in young children, and a study where personalized picture books helped them learn new words.

BuditBuditReviewed by Sungho Park, CEO··4 min read
#Self reference effect#Memory#Personalized learning#NoryCard
Why Children Learn Better as the Hero 『The Self Reference Effect』

Why Children Learn Better as the Hero

Even in a noisy room, your name jumps out when someone says it. We are especially alert to anything about 『me』, and children are no different.

What relates to me is easier to remember

The 『self reference effect』 is the finding that people remember information better when they connect it to themselves. In a classic study with adults, words that people judged for whether they 『described me』 were remembered better than words they judged for meaning (Rogers et al., 1977).

Young children show the effect too. In one study, 64 children aged four to six worked in pairs, sorting pictures of toys into 『mine』 and 『my partner's』. In a surprise memory test later, they recognized the toys that had been assigned to them more often, and this difference was larger in the younger children (Cunningham et al., 2013).

Learning materials where your child is the hero

『Personalized learning materials』 put this idea to use. In one study, 18 children with an average age of three years and ten months heard a picture book twice, a week apart. Some sections of the book were personalized for each child and some were not, and the children learned the new words from the personalized sections better (Kucirkova et al., 2014).

Ideas to try at home

  1. When teaching a new word, tie it to your child's own life, as in 『the apple you love』.
  2. When reading a picture book, swap the hero's name for your child's name.
  3. Make a small word book about your child's day, using photos of your child.

NoryBook Wadiz introduction material, a watercolor style main character made from one photo of a child

Photo: 『NoryBook』 Wadiz introduction material (as of Oct 19, 2026). One photo of a child turned into a watercolor style main character. See it

Worth watching

Video: EBS Docuprime 『The Private Life of Children』 Part 3, Self Esteem (official YouTube channel, Korean). It compares children with high and low self esteem across a range of tasks.

How this continues in Budit

One photo is enough to draw a child as the hero of a picture book. The image at the top comes from the NoryBook campaign images by Budit, together with the cover of the picture book 『My Day』.

  1. 『One photo』: all it takes is one photo with the child facing the camera.
  2. 『The hero in the picture』: that photo becomes a picture book illustration, for example in watercolor. You can try it on the NoryBook demo.
  3. 『On to a picture book』: on the My Day page, 『이미지 개인화 체험』 (try image personalization) turns a photo of your child into the hero of the story.

Try the NoryBook demo

Related reading: My Face in the Picture Book 『Self Concept and Personalized Books』, Learning Feeling Words with My Own Face 『Emotion and Memory』, When Do Children Recognize Themselves 『The Self in the Mirror』

References

  1. Rogers, T. B., Kuiper, N. A. and Kirker, W. S. (1977). Self-reference and the encoding of personal information. View the paper
  2. Cunningham, S. J. et al. (2013). Exploring early self-referential memory effects through ownership. View the paper
  3. Kucirkova, N., Messer, D. and Sheehy, K. (2014). Reading personalized books with preschool children enhances their word acquisition. View on Google Scholar

This article shares general information about child development and education. Every child grows at their own pace. For specific concerns, please talk with a pediatrician or a child development specialist.