Two experiments were carried out to examine memory in persons with
amnesia using self-performed tasks. In Experiment 1, persons with
Korsakoff's syndrome and nonamnesic participants with alcoholism
learned action phrases not involving real objects by either self-performed
tasks or verbal tasks. As indexed by free recall and recognition tests, a
memory advantage favoring self-performed tasks was confirmed in both
participant groups. In Experiment 2, persons with Korsakoff's
syndrome, nonamnesic alcoholic participants, and young control
participants learned object names under three different study conditions
that differed from one another as to whether actions for each name were
verbally generated and whether actions actually were performed. Verbal
generation with or without performing the action facilitated recognition,
whereas recall advantage was found only in the verbal generation-plus
performance condition. These findings confirm a comparable memory
advantage of self-performed tasks for a group with Korsakoff's
syndrome and a group of nonamnesic comparison participants. Action memory
therefore has potential therapeutic implications for memory
rehabilitation. (JINS, 2005, 11, 545–553.)