Mere ownership of memory: motor manipulation during encoding affects memory for words.

Involving the body in learning increases the impact information has on memory (Johnson-Glenberg et al. in Front Psychol 7(1819):1-22, 2016), especially when that information is self-relevant (Truong et al. in J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 42(3):375-385, 2016). Yet, prior research has only examined the effect of self-relevant movement (i.e., toward the self or away from the self) on memory through passive joystick flexion or extension (Oakes and Onyper in Cognit Process 18:325-333, 2017). Therefore, the current research sought to replicate the "toward: remember" and "away: forget" motor-induced self-reference effects on memory with actual body movement. Participants in two experiments took notes on a word list and either pushed notes away, pulled notes toward them, moved notes laterally, or wrote the words in a list. Results showed that participants who pulled hand-written notes toward them had better recall than those who pushed notes away from them or moved them laterally. Results suggest implicitly taking ownership of material in an embodied manner may influence how much is recalled.