Effects of Pointing Gestures on Memory for (In)Congruent Stimuli in Children and Young Adults

Abstract

We investigated whether finger pointing toward picture locations can be used as an external cognitive control tool to guide attention and compensate for the immature cognitive control functions in children compared with young adults. Item and source memory performance was compared for picture‐location pairs that were either semantically congruent (e.g., a cloud presented at the upper half of the screen) or incongruent (e.g., a cloud presented at the lower part of the screen). Contrary to our expectations, pointing had an adverse effect on source memory compared to visual observation only, in both age groups. As expected, superior source memory performance was found for congruent compared to incongruent picture‐locations pairs in both age groups. These findings suggest that pointing toward pictures compared to only viewing may hamper memory, and that congruent picture locations are easier to remember than incongruent ones.

Effects of congruent emotional contexts during encoding on recognition: An ERPs study

“…For example, Guillaume et al (2020) showed that incongruent information's recognition benefit elicited more positive waveforms than congruent information. In contrast, studies by Feyereisen (2009) and Ouwehand et al (2019) highlighted a memory advantage for congruent information. Such findings suggest that the enhanced memory for congruent information may arise from schema facilitation during encoding (Ouwehand et al, 2019;van Kesteren et al, 2013).…”

“…In contrast, studies by Feyereisen (2009) and Ouwehand et al. (2019) highlighted a memory advantage for congruent information. Such findings suggest that the enhanced memory for congruent information may arise from schema facilitation during encoding (Ouwehand et al., 2019; van Kesteren et al., 2013).…”

“…Previous studies have found a modulating effect of congruity on memory performance (Davis et al, 2012;Feyereisen, 2009;Guillaume et al, 2020;Ouwehand et al, 2019;Packard et al, 2020;Tibon et al, 2017;van Kesteren et al, 2013;Worthen & Marshall, 1996).…”

“…Previous studies have found a modulating effect of congruity on memory performance (Davis et al., 2012; Feyereisen, 2009; Guillaume et al., 2020; Ouwehand et al., 2019; Packard et al., 2020; Tibon et al., 2017; van Kesteren et al., 2013; Worthen & Marshall, 1996). Specifically, congruity refers to whether the content of a target and its background information aligns with each other.…”

“…This was supported by our observation of diminished emotional impairment in source recognition accuracy under congruent conditions. Past studies (Feyereisen, 2009;Ouwehand et al, 2019;van Kesteren et al, 2013) have indicated that congruent information bolsters source recognition, likely due to a semantically congruent linkage between the item and its emotional context. Such enhancement may stem from schema-supported encoding, wherein the congruent emotional context and word merge into a unified representation (Liu et al, 2023;Lyu et al, 2018).…”