Abstract
In three experiments, we investigated the influence of the overt performance of signs on memory. Deaf and hearing participants studied lists of action phrases (Experiment 1) or nouns (Experiment 2) under standard verbal instruction, under the instructions to sign the verbal phrase, to symbolically perform the denoted action, or to carry out a prototypical action corresponding to each noun. Higher recall and recognition performances were observed when actions were performed than in the verbal encoding condition, and signing was as effective for memory as was enactment. Thus, overt signing can induce an enactment effect. In contrast, Experiment 3 demonstrated that performing an unrelated action did not. A unique but unrelated action was not memory efficient.
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This research was supported by DFG Grant En 124/13 and DAAD Grant ACLS 315.
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Zimmer, H.D., Engelkamp, J. Signing enhances memory like performing actions. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 10, 450–454 (2003). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196505
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196505