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closeTired hands?
Posted by neburgess on 28 Apr 2013 at 19:59 GMT
The main result is fewer words written when strongly clenching a fist prior to encoding and (written) retrieval of lists of words. The data from such small groups will obviously be hard to interpret, and the effect was not seen in one of the four fist-clenching groups (for which the authors have an interesting and imaginative explanation). But I wonder if tired hands could be playing a role here (at least in the two groups who clenched their right hands prior to retrieval)?
RE: Tired hands?
propperr replied to neburgess on 29 Apr 2013 at 00:34 GMT
Hello,
Thank you for your interest in our work.
You raise an interesting possibility, that right hand clenching prior to recall decreased willingness to write, but not recall ability itself. However, as we pointed out in the manuscript, none of the three other hand clench groups (L/L, L/R, and R/R) differed from each other, arguing against selective ‘hand-tiredness’, and it was the L/L group that demonstrated the numerically fewest number of words recalled, further refuting the ‘tired hand’ hypothesis.
Sincerely,
Ruth E. Propper, Ph.D.
Director, Cerebral Lateralization Laboratory
Associate Professor
Psychology Department
Montclair State University
Montclair, NJ
RE: RE: Tired hands?
neburgess replied to propperr on 29 Apr 2013 at 10:28 GMT
Dear Ruth
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I guess future research will distinguish between: i) an overall effect of tiredness = fewer responses, with a false negative for group R/L; and ii) an overall effect of tiredness being specifically off-set in group R/L by lateralized blood-flow boosts to encoding (L) and retrieval (R) processing. I guess the finding of fewer "hits" but not more "false positives" would be consistent with reduced responding rather than reduced memory. And Hypothesis ii) should predict fewest responses in group L/R (fist clenching diverting blood from the relevant regions at both encoding and retrieval) rather than group L/L?
Good luck with your future research - I hope it does not get so widely misrepresented (re. various journalists quoting you as "clenching fists can improve memory")
Neil