Embodied play to learn: Exploring Kinect-facilitated memory performance

Introduction Body movements, including gestures, provide different learning channels for students, which may help them to more easily understand learning materials (Hostetter & Alibali, 2008; Tellier, 2008; Wilson, 2002). From this perspective, the purpose of using gestures is to help learners improve their comprehension and build connections between the materials and gestures. In addition to supporting comprehension, gestures can be used to develop more elaborate memories related to learning materials (Riseborough, 1981; So, Sim & Low, 2011; Tellier, 2008). For example, people applying actions during learning events (eg, exercising while saying, “Let’s do exercise.”) have been found to perform better on recall tasks. Previous research has highlighted the effectiveness of using gestures and cognitive tasks together (Goldin-Meadow, McNeil & Singleton, 1996; Ratner, Foley & McCaskill, 2001; Stevanoni & Salmon, 2005).