Associative Memory Constraints on the Storage and Retrieval of Action-Effect Relations

How are motor activities linked to their perceptual outcomes? We here test the idea that the storage and retrieval of action-effect linkages is subject to constraints of associative memory. Specifically, we argue that mutual interference between such linkages should favor the storage and retrieval of unique (one-to-one) action-effect linkages as compared to overlapping (one-to-many) action-effect linkages (uniqueness effect). Moreover, we assume that increasing the number of repetitions of action-effect episodes facilitates learning and is modulated by this uniqueness effect. In three experiments, participants first produced certain visual effects through motor activities, and were later asked to retrieve the activity that had produced a certain probed visual effect before. For the most part, retrieval performance increased with unique as compared to overlapping action-effect linkages and with increasing number of action-effect repetitions, while repetition had a slightly larger influence with unique as compared to overlapping action-effect linkages. We discuss these results against the backdrop of associative and episodic retrieval accounts of learning.