Abstract
In the field of memory, it is now admitted that an experience of memory is not only the consequence of the activation of a precise content, but also results from an inference associated with the transfer of the manner in which the process was carried out (i.e., fluency) in addition to the transfer of the process itself. The aim of this work was to show that experience of memory is also associated with the fluency that is due to the transfer of a processing carried out in our past interactions with our environment, independently the fluency associated with the stimulus in progress. First, participants performed a perceptual discrimination task (geometric shapes: circle or square) that involves a fluent or a non-fluent gesture to respond. Motor fluency vs. non-fluency was implicitly associated with the colour of the geometric shapes. Second, participants had to perform a classical memory recognition task. During the recognition phase, items appeared either with the colour associated with motor fluency or with the colour associated with motor non-fluency. We used a Go–NoGo task to avoid having a confused factor (response space). Results show that items were better recognised with a colour associated with motor fluency than with a colour associated with non-motor fluency. These findings support the idea that an experience of memory is also associated with the transfer of the motor feeling of fluency linked to our past interactions with the environment.
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Actually, fluency during recognition can be due to two distinct mechanisms. Either it is due to the fact that the stimulus has been encountered in the past, which facilitates its current processing. In this case, there is no transfer of fluency, i.e., even if the processing was not fluent in the past, the fact that it occurred suffices to produce the current fluency. Or it is due to the transfer into the current recognition task of a fluency that occurred in the past. In this paper, we are interested in the second case.
The effect of manual dominance is also well documented in the area of emotions (Brouillet et al., 2015; Casasanto, 2009; Casasanto & Chrysikou, 2011; Casasanto & Henetz, 2012; Casasanto & Jasmin, 2010; de la Fuente et al., 2014; de la Vega et al., 2012, 2013; Kong, 2013; Mihau et al, 2013, 2015; Toplolinski, 2012; Topolinski & Strack, 2009; Woltin & Guinote, 2015).
Regarding embodied approaches of language, a growing number of researches have highlighted that when we read a word, brain simulates the same sensorimotor systems that are involved when interacting with real objects represented by the word. Thus, a large overlap between the brain areas involved in language and action is regularly observed (see Harpaintner et al., 2020; Henningsen-Schomers & Pulvermüller, 2021; Pulvermüller, 2005, 2010, 2013).
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Brouillet, D., Rousset, S. & Perrin, D. Experience of memory: transfer of the motor feeling of fluency linked to our interaction with the environment. Psychological Research 87, 1753–1760 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-022-01759-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-022-01759-8