Effects of balance cues and experience on serial recall of human movement

One way that student dancers learn new contemporary dance, hip-hop or ballroom dancing is by observing and reproducing dance phrases or steps. For experts, learning long and complex sequences may appear effortless whereas for those new to dance, the task is challenging with both motor and cognitive demands. On the cognitive side, the first stage for increasing familiarity or perceptual fluency is registering or encoding material in the short-term memory. With rehearsal, the material may be transferred subsequently to the long-term memory. Theories propose that human memory is cue driven – the more cues that are present while taking information in, that are also present at the time of retrieving the information, the better the recall. In this study, we investigate proprioceptive cues related to relative stability, as cues to short-term memory for recalling a series of simple body movements. We ask: is the feeling of either being in a balanced or unbalanced standing position a cue to short-term memory for movement material? And, if so, are such proprioceptive cues moderated by dance experience? An experiment was designed to test short-term memory for relatively simple body movements. Our aim was to investigate the observation of a series of movements and their immediate recall in the original order by adults with differing levels of specialist movement experience, including dance and martial arts. The experiment task was similar to a dance teacher performing a number of different movements and students recalling those movements immediately by performing them using their body and in the correct order. To minimise intrusion from long-term knowledge of biological motion – as such knowledge may distinguish novices and experts without testing their short-term memory capacity – disconnected or non-flowing simple movements were used as the material to be observed and later recalled.