Engelkamp J
Department of Psychology, University of the Saarland, Germany.
Br J Psychol. 1995 May;86 ( Pt 2):227-40. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1995.tb02558.x.
It was assumed that self-performing an action necessarily focuses information-processing on action-relevant information in order to guarantee smooth enactment. As a consequence, enacting an action should provide the subjects with excellent item-specific information and hinder the subjects from encoding contextual information that is not a part of the action proper. These hypotheses were tested in paired-associate learning experiments in which unrelated action-verb-pairs served as stimuli. Free recall (FR) of the action verbs was considered to indicate item-specific encoding, and cued recall (CR)--with one element of a pair serving as a cue for the other--to reflect context encoding. The verb-pairs were learned essentially under four types of instructions: under standard learning instructions (as a control), under enactment instructions, under self-imagery instructions, and under other-imagery instructions. The results demonstrated that enactment led to better FR than standard learning and the two imagery conditions, showing that enactment provides excellent item-specific information. CR was equally poor after overt enactment and self-imagined performance and worse after standard learning and after imagining somebody else performing an action, showing that motor encoding hinders pair integration--i.e. efficient context encoding.
人们认为，自行执行一个动作必然会将信息处理聚焦于与动作相关的信息，以确保动作顺利实施。因此，执行一个动作应该能为受试者提供出色的特定项目信息，并阻碍受试者对不属于该动作本身一部分的情境信息进行编码。这些假设在配对联想学习实验中得到了检验，在该实验中，不相关的动作动词对用作刺激物。动作动词的自由回忆（FR）被视为表明特定项目编码，线索回忆（CR）——以一对中的一个元素作为另一个元素的线索——被视为反映情境编码。动词对基本上是在四种类型的指导下学习的：在标准学习指导下（作为对照）、在执行指导下、在自我想象指导下和在他人想象指导下。结果表明，与标准学习以及两种想象条件相比，执行导致了更好的自由回忆，这表明执行能提供出色的特定项目信息。在公开执行和自我想象执行后，线索回忆同样较差，而在标准学习后以及想象别人执行一个动作后，线索回忆更差，这表明动作编码会阻碍配对整合——即有效的情境编码。
