Michael, You asked:
1. Have you ever heard this claim, or some other version of it? No. I never heard of it before. Sounds like some pop-psych idea? 2. Do you have an idea what the source of this claim is? No, it hasn't found its way into any of the cognitive/memory texts I have. I've heard of things like looking left or right to supposedly activate one hemisph more than another, but not this. 3. Are you aware of any prior attempts to put this claim to empirical test? No. If people believe that shaking their left foot will help them recall, or if they use that during encoding, then perhaps it could serve as some kind of retrieval cue. If there is support for this idea, then perhaps that's how it might work? Should be interesting to see what turns up! Gary Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D. Professor, Psychology Saginaw Valley State University University Center, MI 48710 989-964-4491 peter...@svsu.edu >>> "Donnelly, Michael" <donnel...@uwstout.edu> 5/11/2009 1:01 pm >>> Hi TIPsters: This question is for those of you with a better memory than mine about the memory literature. I have a student who is conducting a research methods project based on that oft-repeated claim that looking up while you try to remember something improves recall. When she came to me with that idea, I could recall having heard it myself at some point, as could my wife (who has a background in memory research), but when I started doing some searches online with her, I could find nary a paper or chapter that documents that claim, anywhere. So here are my questions for you: 1. Have you ever heard this claim, or some other version of it? 2. Do you have an idea what the source of this claim is? 3. Are you aware of any prior attempts to put this claim to empirical test? She has some interesting data, which suggest that beliefs about the claim may be partly correct, but in a way that I will not reveal here, as we may decide to create a larger scale study for her senior project based on this work. As always, references to published work would be most welcome. Note that this claim is about upward gaze, not side to side eye movements, which is a different thing I think, and there are lots of papers out there about the side-to-side eye movements and memory, owing to the high interest that exists related to EMDR (whether or not the claims of it's practitioners are correct). Thanks in advance, Michael Donnelly, PhD UW-Stout/CNERVE --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
