The memory enhancement for enacted compared to visually or verbally encoded items - called the enactment effect – [38] is effective in terms of both accuracy and processing speed of the retrieved information.
The present study aimed at assessing whether adults with AS would benefit from the enactment effect when recalling a list of previously enacted items vs. items that were only visually and verbally experienced.
The present results showed the absence of enactment effect, i.e. a positive difference between the proportions of enacted vs. observed (visually and verbally encoded) items in individuals with AS.
Results support our proposed classification of interactive behaviors, extend previous findings on the enactment effect into a computer environment, and suggest the importance of considering the design of interactive tasks in the development of multimedia learning materials.
If possible and relevant, students could even perform actions alongside their self-explanations (Cohen, 1981; see also the enactment effect, Hainselin, Picard, Manolli, Vankerkore-Candas, & Bourdin, 2017).
Memory for action is enhanced if individuals are allowed to perform the corresponding movements, compared to when they simply listen to them (enactment effect).
Accordingly, the lack of enactment effect they exhibited on the Free Recall task would reflect specific difficulties in constructing personal episodic traces.
Adults with AS exhibited a reduced enactment effect on the Free Recall test, while on the Recognition and the Source Memory tasks their performance was comparable to that of adults with typical development.
In conclusion, we believe that the reduced enactment effect in adults with AS reveals an impaired action monitoring system, likely associated with an insufficient use of motor and proprioceptive information or with an inadequate sensorimotor integration.
In a previous study, Lind and Bowler [22] have shown an impaired self-other source memory along with an undiminished recognition memory and a preserved enactment effect in children with ASD.
