Encoding Specificity in Short-Term Memory for Movement Information

Abstract

Lee and Hirota (1980) claimed to provide evidence for the encoding specificity principle for movement information. I argue that their interpretations are confounded by methodological and theoretical factors. I further suggest that their findings are compatible with generation-recognition models of memory retrieval and thus, their study does not provide an adequate test for investigating encoding-retrieval relations. Finally, I discuss the problems and dangers of borrowing theoretical concepts from the verbal domain and applying them indiscriminately to the motor domain.