What Studies of Actors and Acting Can Tell Us About Memory and Cognitive Functioning

The art of acting has been defined as the ability to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances. Our many years of researching theatrical expertise have pro-duced findings relevant to text comprehension, learning theory, cognitive aging, and expert memory. In this article, we first discuss how large amounts of dialogue, learned in a very short period, can be reproduced in real time with complete spontaneity. We then turn to abstracting the es-sence of acting and applying it to diverse undertakings, from discovering optimal learning strategies to promoting healthy cognitive aging. Finally, we address the implica-tions of acting expertise on current theories of embodied cognition. Actors report that the question they are asked most frequently is, ''How do you learn all those lines?'' However, actors themselves rarely consider memorization a defining skill. Rather they are concerned about giving honest, spontaneous performances, ones that focus on communicating the meanings underlying the literal words. Indeed, when actors do mention memory, it is usually within the context of forgetting the lines until they are needed to communicate the feeling of the moment. The fine British actor, Michael Caine, summed up the process: You must be able to stand there not thinking of that line. You take it off the other actor's face. Otherwise, for your next line, you're not listening and not free to respond naturally, to act spontaneously.