Can 'acting' help improve memory?

Have you ever felt annoyed with yourself, maybe for forgetting to do an important task?If so, acting out things you are supposed to remember or pretending that you are actually doing it, can help you recall.

The findings showed that alternative enactment techniques, such as acting, can improve prospective memory – where you have not remembered to take the action you had planned.

This involves recreating an action and pretending that you are actually doing it, in as much vivid detail as possible, the researchers said.

A failing prospective memory can be an early sign of Alzheimer, according to lead author Antonina Periera, psychologist at the University of Chichester in the UK.

In the research, published in the journal Neuropsychology, it was examined the prospective memory performance in nearly 100 participants. It included patients with mild cognitive impairment aged 64 – 87 years, healthy older adults aged 62 – 84 years and younger adults aged 2 –18 years.

Participants reported improvement, especially the older subjects with mild cognitive impairment in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. It was confirmed that prospective memory erodes as we get older and that enactment techniques might support those with a poor prospective memory.

The enactment techniques "can have long lasting effects even for people with cognitive impairment.