Relevance of the listener’s motor system in recalling phrases enacted by the speaker

Abstract

Memory for series of action phrases improves in listeners when speakers accompany each phrase with congruent gestures compared to when speakers stay still. Studies reveal that the listeners' motor system, at encoding, plays a crucial role in this enactment effect. We present two experiments on gesture observation, which explored the role of the listeners' motor system at recall. The participants listened to the phrases uttered by a speaker in two conditions in each experiment. In the gesture condition, the speaker uttered the phrases with accompanying congruent gestures, and in the no-gesture condition, the speaker stayed still while uttering the phrases. The participants were then invited, in both conditions of the experiments, to perform a motor task while recalling the phrases proffered by the speaker. The results revealed that the advantage of observing gestures on memory disappears if the listeners move at recall arms and hands (same motor effectors moved by the speaker, Experiment 1a), but not when the listeners move legs and feet (different motor effectors from those moved by the speaker, Experiment 1b). The results suggest that the listeners' motor system is involved not only during the encoding of action phrases uttered by a speaker but also when recalling these phrases during retrieval.

Embodied memories: Reviewing the role of the body in memory processes

“…According to the reactivation hypothesis, that activation might play a pivotal role in recalling the event. Further, although using a specific experimental setting involving pantomime gestures rather than real, everyday actions, Ianì and Bucciarelli (2018) found that memory for sentences involving actions previously performed by an actor is greater when the actor moves compared with when he stays still while the sentence is uttered. On the other hand, involving the listener's motor system during gesture observation cancelled the beneficial effect only when the motor task involved the same effectors used by the speaker, as the beneficial effect indeed persisted when the motor task involved different effectors.…”

“…Further, it has been recognized that such reactivation works both ways: retrieval mechanisms reactivate encoding mechanisms, prompting encoding mechanisms to, in turn, facilitate recall tasks (Dewhurst & Knott, 2010;Kolers, 1973). If one is to accept that recall is a simulation of encoding processes and states-that is, repacking together the perceptual, affective and somatic components of human experiences, then prompting mechanisms congruent to those affecting encoding will speed up retrieval processes, while incongruent feelings, sensations or bodily movements will hinder them (see, e.g., Dijkstra & Zwaan, 2007;Dijkstra & Post, 2014;Ianì & Bucciarelli, 2018;Riskind, 1983).…”

“…In contrast, the congruence effect persisted when the participants were asked to move their legs and feet: they responded to pictures that were congruent with the speaker's gestures more quickly than to those that were incongruent. Crucially for memory conceptualization, Ianì and Bucciarelli (2018) highlighted that the advantage of observing gestures on memory for action phrases disappeared when at recall the listeners moved the same motor effectors as those moved by the speaker at encoding (i.e., their arms and hands), but was present when the listeners moved different motor effectors (i.e., their legs and feet). The results seem to suggest that the listener's motor system is involved both during the encoding of actions and at their subsequent recall during retrieval.…”

“…Second, the facilitation provided by a body position compatible with the content of the stimulus materials to be remembered seems to be only the result of a greater availability of processing resources. In fact, most of the abovementioned studies evaluated these congruence/incongruence effects in terms of access speed or access facilitation (e.g., Casasanto & Dijkstra, 2010;Dijkstra et al, 2007;Ianì & Bucciarelli, 2018), in terms of changes in the sensation of familiarity of a given motor sequence (e.g., Yang et al, 2009), or in terms of which manipulating somatic states can modify the emotional aspects accompanying memories (e.g., Arminjon et al, 2015;Veenstra et al, 2017). In all these examples, manipulations of the body seem to lead to a modulation of the memory process, but not to a suppression thereof, nor a changing in memory representations.…”

Observer’s body posture affects processing of other humans’ actions

“…As participants in our experiment were invited to perform the interfering movements both during action observation and during photo evaluation, this may have not interfered with the sensorimotor simulations underlying the two phases. As an additional important remark, one should consider that we investigated the impact of sensorimotor interferences on anticipation mechanisms, whereas these previous studies investigated the impact of sensorimotor interference on sentences comprehension (Ping et al, 2014) or memory (Halvorson et al, 2019; see also Ianì & Bucciarelli, 2018; Ianì, Burin, et al, 2018).…”