Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The ability to plan, inhibit, and execute motor movements are all necessary for achieving goal-directed behavior. These processes are closely related to memory, as perceptual input and memory of that input often recruit motor movements. Unknown, however, is how the engagement of perception- action processes impact the memory of objects. One such interaction suggests that participants have worse memory recall for stimuli which elicit inhibition of a motor response than stimuli which afford the execution of a motor response (Chiu & Egner, 2015). This effect has been explained through competition for common neural resources: allocation of resources toward response inhibition reduces the amount of resources available for memory. Alternatively, this effect could be driven at the level of perception-action coupling: engaging and pairing the motor system with visual perception enhances the memory of stimuli which elicited the motor preparation or response. To test these hypotheses, we first replicated Chiu and Egner (2015). In Experiment 2, we included neutral stimuli that did not necessitate motor preparation processes. Memory was enhanced for stimuli presented in conjunction with motor engagement, providing evidence for an account of memory that is facilitated when coupled with the motor system.