Memory Improvement, Mental Health, Psychology & Counseling, Behavioral Sciences, Psychology 

Our memory of simple action phrases such as "comb your hair" improves by about 50 percent when we actually act out the phrase. Extensive studies on this self-performance effect, which is not explained by any of the current theories of episodic memory, led the authors of this work to develop a multi-modal approach to the understanding of memory, which not only takes account of the traditional nonverbal (visual) systems, but also includes the influence of the motor system and actions on memory. The central ideal of this model is that human information processing is to a certain extent decentralized, and that episodic memory performance depends not only on central information processing, but also on which systems are actually involved in the encoding and retrieval of the material. This work describes the practical evidence and theoretical background of this model, which not only challenges current concepts in the psychology of memory, but also has potentially important implications about how people might best learn and remember information in our increasingly "multi-dimensional" information age. This clearly-written discussion is intended for anyone involved with memory - psychologists, educators, psychophysiologists, and graduate students in these fields. - from Amzon