Mine in motion: How physical actions impact the psychological sense of object ownership

Our attention and memory can be biased toward objects having high self-relevance, such as things we own. Yet in explaining such effects, theorizing has been limited to psychological determinants of self-relevance. Here we examined the contribution physical actions make to this ownership bias. In Experiment 1, participants moved object images on a touch interactive table that either arbitrarily belonged to "self" or "other," and that were moved into locations closer or farther from their bodies. Subsequent recognition was highest for self-owned objects moved closer to the body, as measured via a subsequent memory recall test. In Experiment 2, when participants moved images via keyboard rather than overt action, the proximity effect of the body on attention was abolished. In Experiment 3, participants pulled or pushed self-owned or other-owned object images to side-by-side locations on a touch interactive table. Self-owned objects that were pulled were recognized the most. Our findings demonstrate that physical actions can have a direct impact on the psychological saliency of owned objects, with the act of bringing objects toward the self leading to greater recall.