Improved episodic integration through enactment: implications for aging

Enactment may improve memory for verb phrases by facilitating episodic integration of object-action components into a unitized whole. It is unclear, however, whether the influence of enactment on episodic integration is related to or independent of the strength of the preexisting semantic relationship between components. To address this issue, the authors examined the influence of enactment on memory for lists of semantically related object-action phrases ("Put money in the wallet") and semantically unrelated phrases created by repairing these objects and actions to make phrases that were unusual but still were possible to perform ("String a thread through the wallet," "Put money in the napkin"). As such, phrases in the related and unrelated lists were matched for familiarity of the individual components and differed only in the associative strength of the object-action relationship. Although verbatim recall of unrelated lists was poorer under standard verbal encoding conditions, enactment succeeded in bringing performance to the level of related lists, indicating that enactment's influence on episodic integration was independent of the semantic relatedness of the object and action components. Analysis of partial recall errors (accurate recall of only one component) suggested that enactment benefited recall in the unrelated lists by improving memory for the action and reducing fragmentation of the association, providing further support for the unitization view. This pattern of results was replicated in normal older adults, a population that exhibits particular difficulty with episodic memory for unrelated associations. The cognitive mechanisms by which enactment may improve episodic integration in both younger and older adults are discussed.