Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences

We usually think of memory as something that goes on solely in the brain, but could it be, that the body also plays a role in the memory process? A theory of memory as embodied cognition holds that memory is also driven by body-systems, and is therefore not exclusively something in the brain. That is, embodied and interactive bodily processes are constitutive components in memory encoding and retrieval. Knowledge about these processes might provide useful insights to current research on impairments in memory (e.g., amnesia, dementia, depression).

My research aims to examine the role(s) of bodily mechanisms on memory encoding and retrieval, especially that of sensorimotor mechanisms and emotional arousal, through a series of studies employing different approaches. The methodologies I employ vary from traditional approaches like questionnaires and self-report measures to modern methodologies taking advantage of new technology in order to record actual visual aspects of memory encoding and physiological emotional arousal. This is one of the first studies to record objective bodily measures of emotional arousal in ongoing experiences occurring in real-life social contexts and relate them to self-report measures.