Investigating the underlying mechanisms of the enactment effect: The role of action–object bindings in aiding immediate memory performance

Abstract

Previous research has established that enacted action-object phrases lead to superior immediate memory performance compared to purely verbal memory. In the current investigation, Experiment 1 examined how enactment separately affects immediate memory for actions and objects in 24 adults by presenting action-object phrases and asking participants to recall either the actions or the objects presented in correct serial order. The results showed that when employed at presentation, enactment led to superior recall performance compared to verbal repetition, but this effect was significant only for memory for actions and not objects. Enactment during immediate recall did not lead to better memory performance compared to verbal recall for either actions or objects. In order to examine whether the lack of an enactment at recall was due to the splitting of action-object phrases at retrieval, Experiment 2 (n=24) examined memory for whole action-object phrases under enactment at recall. The results showed a typical enactment at recall benefit. Furthermore, a novel binding analysis showed that enactment recall increased the likelihood of action features being remembered in a bound pair rather than alone. Together these findings suggest that action-object bindings play a crucial role in the manifestation of the enactment effect in immediate recall, especially when enactment is employed at the recall phase.

Translating words into actions in working memory: The role of spatial-motoric coding

“…In line with earlier findings in young adults (Koriat et al, 1990), children's performance was enhanced when they were required to carry out the target activities as compared with simply recalling them verbally. This enactment advantage is a robust effect and has since been widely replicated (e.g., Allen & Waterman, 2015;Jaroslawska et al, 2016Jaroslawska et al, , 2021Lui et al, 2018;Makri & Jarrold, 2021;Waterman et al, 2017;Yang et al, 2019Yang et al, , 2021 see Allen et al, 2022, for a review). Conditions in these experiments are typically blocked and it seems that the anticipation of subsequent enaction generates motor representations during encoding and these provide extra support for the performance (Koriat et al, 1990).…”

Improving older adults’ ability to follow instructions: benefits of actions at encoding and retrieval in working memory

“…The advantage for enacted over spoken recall previously found in children Jaroslawska et al, 2016;Waterman et al, 2017;Yang et al, 2017), young adults (Allen & Waterman, 2015;Jaroslawska et al, 2021;Makri & Jarrold, 2021;Yang et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2014), and older adults (Jaroslawska et al, 2021) was again found (Allen et al, 2022). Planning for enactment may serve to strengthen the binding between action and object (Makri & Jarrold, 2021;Yang et al, 2016).…”

“…The advantage for enacted over spoken recall previously found in children Jaroslawska et al, 2016;Waterman et al, 2017;Yang et al, 2017), young adults (Allen & Waterman, 2015;Jaroslawska et al, 2021;Makri & Jarrold, 2021;Yang et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2014), and older adults (Jaroslawska et al, 2021) was again found (Allen et al, 2022). Planning for enactment may serve to strengthen the binding between action and object (Makri & Jarrold, 2021;Yang et al, 2016). Evidence from dual task studies suggests that it also appears to elicit motor coding (Jaroslawska et al, 2018;Li et al, in press), that may then feed into and enrich the multidimensional representation of the anticipated action sequence.…”

“…Recent evidence from young adults suggests that the enacted-recall advantage arises from active action planning that helps form a more integrated motor-spatial representation of the action sequence (Jaroslawska et al, 2018;Li et al, in press). Indeed, Makri and Jarrold (2021) found that planning for enactment at recall might serve to bind actions and objects together into an integrated representation (see also Yang et al, 2016). While the precise mechanisms underlying this are yet to be mapped out, motor coding elicited during anticipation of enactment may be held in a motor output store that serves to develop and hold plans for immediate action.…”

Actions versus Words: Exploring the contributions of working memory and motoric coding in children's instruction following using a dual‐task paradigm

“…both enactment at encoding and enactment at recall have shown better memory performance compared to verbal memory (Allen & Waterman, 2015;Waterman et al, 2017), it is worth noting that within a WM framework, it is enactment at recall that produces the most robust effects on memory performance. This phenomenon, known as the 'enactment effect' has been repeatedly demonstrated in both adults (Makri & Jarrold, 2021;Yang et al, 2014) and children ( Jaroslawska et al, 2016;Waterman et al, 2017). For instance, when investigating children's WM abilities using everyday classroom activities, Gathercole et al (2008) asked children to encode instructions verbally and to recall them either verbally or through enactment.…”