[On the finger-drawing strategy in recognition of random shapes]

The present study was designed to identify the memory-enhancing factor of finger-drawing strategy, and investigate the relationship between finger-drawing and semantic processing of random shapes. Forty subjects were randomly assigned to one of the five conditions: imagery encoding, verbal encoding, finger-drawing for encoding, finger-drawing for searching, and finger-drawing for both encoding and searching, and performed recognition tasks of random shapes. Results indicated that in the two conditions under which finger-drawing was used for encoding, recognition of complex shapes was superior to that of simple ones. No differences were found for those of high and low associative shapes. Verbal reports of the subjects indicated that finger-drawing for encoding prevented them from naming the shapes. In contrast, in the other three conditions under which finger-drawing was not used for encoding, recognition of simple shapes was superior to that of complex ones. Also, recognition of high associative shapes was superior to that of low ones. These results suggest that kinetic representation, rather than amount of attention, is responsible for the memory-facilitating effect of finger-drawing, and that finger-drawing for encoding inhibits active semantic processing.