Memory for student-performed tasks.

Memory for action events: The power of enactment

“…The possibility that SPTs can behave differently depending on how the events are perceived raises the general question of how to ensure that experimental manipulations, designed to investigate specific problems in standard SPT recall, do not produce unwanted changes in perceptual emphasis. For example, the obvious benefits of paraphrasing reported by Glover et al (1987) may not mean that the verbal component (instructions) is important in the recall of SPTs under standard conditions, but rather that the paraphrasing manipulation emphasizes the verbal aspects of the events with the result that they play a greater role in recall than under standard conditions. One also could ask whether apparent discrepancies in data from different laboratories depend on subtle differences in experimental instructions or procedure, and, if so, how to control such procedural differences.…”

“…A much more serious threat to this approach comes from a second finding reported by Glover et al (1987). Recall of SPTs was significantly improved when subjects paraphrased the experimenter-given instructions while performing the tasks.…”

“…What these two studies indicate is that the retrieval of encoded SPTs may be improved upon by the addition of retrieval cues. In the Glover et al (1987) study, the previously learned one-is-a-bun cues improved retrieval; in the B/ickman et aL (1986) study, recalled list items presumably functioned as cues for other list items from the same category. Thus, the recall of slapped my thigh could spark the thought, "What else did I do with my body?…”

“…proved to be easier to recall than noncategorized lists. And second, Glover et aL (1987) demonstrated that the one-is-a-bun mnemonic, which has proved so effective with verbal material, is also effective with SPTs. What these two studies indicate is that the retrieval of encoded SPTs may be improved upon by the addition of retrieval cues.…”

Memory for goal-directed sequences of actions: Is doing better than seeing?

“…Ratner, Padgett, & Bushey, 1988). Consequently, action sequences like "assembling a distillation apparatus" are remembered better than arbitrary lists of actions (Glover, Timme, Deyloff, & Rogers, 1987). Other studies investigated developmental effects in memory for the hierarchically structured action sequence "making clay" (Ratner et al, 1988;Ratner, Smith, & Padgett, 1990).…”