Visual imagery and enactment of actions in memory

Abstract

It was assumed that self-performing an action necessarily focuses information-processing on action-relevant information in order to guarantee smooth enactment. As a consequence, enacting an action should provide the subjects with excellent item-specific information and hinder the subjects from encoding contextual information that is not a part of the action proper. These hypotheses were tested in paired-associate learning experiments in which unrelated action-verb-pairs served as stimuli. Free recall (FR) of the action verbs was considered to indicate item-specific encoding, and cued recall (CR)--with one element of a pair serving as a cue for the other--to reflect context encoding. The verb-pairs were learned essentially under four types of instructions: under standard learning instructions (as a control), under enactment instructions, under self-imagery instructions, and under other-imagery instructions. The results demonstrated that enactment led to better FR than standard learning and the two imagery conditions, showing that enactment provides excellent item-specific information. CR was equally poor after overt enactment and self-imagined performance and worse after standard learning and after imagining somebody else performing an action, showing that motor encoding hinders pair integration--i.e. efficient context encoding.