Memory organization of action events and its relationship to memory performance.

Abstract

Previous research yielded inconsistent results regarding the memory organization of self-performed actions. The authors propose that task performance changes the very basis of memory organization. Enactment during study and test (Experiment 1) yielded stronger enactive clustering (based on motor-movement similarities), whereas verbal encoding yielded stronger conceptual clustering (based on semantic-episodic similarities). Enactment enhanced memory quantity and memory accuracy. Both measures increased with enactive clustering under self-performance instructions but with conceptual clustering under verbal instructions. Enactment only during study (Experiment 2) or only during testing (Experiment 3) also enhanced enactive clustering. It is proposed that different conditions affect the relative salience of different types of memory organization and their relative contribution to recall.

Memory for goal-directed sequences of actions: Is doing better than seeing?

“…Our performance test replicated the finding that organization is sometimes superior after enactment than after verbal learning (Koriat & Pearlman-Avnion, 2003). Those authors attributed it to motor information.…”

“…actions are indeed not organized according to semantic categories (such as gardening or cooking), but to bodymovement similarity (such as twisting and covering) (Koriat & Pearlman-Avnion, 2003). These findings were interpreted as evidence for the motor-code view (also see Hornstein & Mulligan, 2004, for a recent interpretation of findings in line with that account).…”

“…Although these findings speak against the motor code, recent evidence on memory organization was interpreted as supporting it (Koriat & Pearlman-Avnion, 2003). Organization or relational processing (e.g., Einstein & Hunt, 1980) establishes efficient retrieval paths, thus improving recall.…”

The Basic-Systems Model of Episodic Memory

“…The nervous system from the spinal cord up is divided into afferent and efferent processes, but in modern-day views of episodic memory, efferent processes are typically neglected except in work on embodied cognition and the role of enactment in memory (Engelkamp, 2001;Glenberg, 1997;Koriat & Pearlman-Avnion, 2003;Zimmer et al, 2001). This neglect of efferent processes is reasonable when the tie between memories and the way they are expressed motorically is arbitrary (e.g., expressing "yes" by pressing a button, speaking, writing, or nodding).…”

Limits on the role of retrieval cues in memory for actions: Enactment effects in the absence of object cues in the environment

“…A number of published reports have shown consistent enactment effects in free recall without any exceptions (e.g., Earles & Kersten, 2000Earles, Kersten, Turner, & McMullen, 1999;Engelkamp, Seiler, & Zimmer, 2004;Engelkamp & Zimmer, 1996Helstrup, 2004;Knopf, 1995a;Koriat & Pearlman-Avnion, 2003;Norris & West, 1993;Ratner & Hill, 1991;von Essen, 2005;Zimmer, 1991;Zimmer, Helstrup, & Engelkamp, 2000). However, other studies have reported at least one exception-that is, one experiment or condition in which no enactment effect in free recall emerged (Brooks & Gardiner, 1994;Daprati, Nico, Saimpont, Franck, & Sirigu, 2005; Engelkamp, Mohr, & Zimmer, 1991;Foley, Bouffard, Raag, & DiSanto Rose, 1991;Helstrup, 1996Helstrup, , 2005Helstrup & Molander, 1996;Knopf, 1995b;Knopf, Mack, Lenel, & Ferrante, 2005;Mohr, Engelkamp, & Zimmer, 1989;Zimmer & Engelkamp, 1985, 1989.…”