The importance of performing versus observing meaningful actions, on the enactment benefit to memory

ABSTRACT

Performing an action symbolic of a word during encoding aids memory for the word, relative to reading it. This subject-performed task (SPT) is known as the enactment effect. Observing an experimenter perform an action (EPT) has also been shown to aid memory, similar in magnitude to SPT. We asked whether an EPT would confer a memory benefit when the action was unrelated, and when the experimenter was not physically present, but seen in a video. Target words were presented visually one at a time. Participants enacted them, performed a non-representational gesture, or read them, depending on the encoding cue (within-subjects), or watched videos of the experimenter carrying out these tasks (between-subjects). Memory was subsequently assessed in a free-recall test. Our results show that semantic relatedness of the action to targets is critical to benefit memory, and observing others performing actions in a video attenuates the benefit conferred from meaningful actions.

KEYWORDS:

• Enactment
• experimenter-performed task
• gestures
• semantics
• mirror-neurones

Acknowledgements

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data sets (First link: Main effect of encoding strategy on recall; Second link: Onset time to initiate encoding task in the SPT group) that support the findings of this study are openly available in Open Science Framework at [https://mfr.osf.io/render?url=https%3A%2F%2Fosf.io%2F34fuq%2Fdownload] and [https://mfr.osf.io/render?url=https%3A%2F%2Fosf.io%2Fkjghr%2Fdownload].

Notes

1 This class of neurons were originally discovered in the ventral pre-motor area (F5) of macaque monkeys, and have subsequently been reported in the inferior parietal lobule, including the lateral and ventral intraparietal areas, and in the dorsal premotor and primary motor cortex (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004). Since their original discovery, several neurophysiological evidence suggest that the human motor system also has mirror properties, such that our ability to recognize and interpret the actions of others entails the involvement of our own motor system via the mirror neuron circuit (Cochin et al., 1998, 1999; Fadiga et al., 1995).

2 This sample calculation was based on the study by Mulligan and Hornstein (2003).

3 These results were the same when Proportion recalled was used as the dependent variable.

4 Mauchly’s test indicated that the assumption of sphericity had been violated, χ2(2) = 13.70, p = .001, thus, a Greenhouse-Geisser correction was applied.

5 To calculate recall score we counted how many words participants correctly recalled from the target word list, separately for each encoding strategy.

6 Mauchly’s test indicated that the assumption of sphericity had been violated, χ2(2) = 16.47, p = <.001, thus, a Greenhouse-Geisser correction was applied.

Additional information

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant 2020-03917 awarded to author MAF.