Cross-modal facilitation of memory through actions

Abstract Throughout our lives, the actions we produce can be highly familiar and repetitive (e.g., commuting to work); yet layered upon these routine actions are unique, one-shot, episodic experiences. Substantial research has shown that prior knowledge can facilitate learning of conceptually-related new information. However, despite the central role our behavior plays in ongoing experience, little is known about how engagement in a familiar sequence of actions might influence memory for unrelated, non-motor information coincident with those actions. To this end, participants encoded novel items while simultaneously following a sequence of actions (button presses) that was either predictable/well-learned or random. Across three experiments, we find that temporal order memory, but not item or source memory, is significantly enhanced for novel items encoded while participants executed predictable versus random action sequences. Such results suggest that the execution of predictable behaviors during novel learning scaffolds within-event temporal memory, an essential feature of episodic experiences.