A memory grab

The human hand has been used in human art from the very beginning. We have always been fascinated by this appendage at the end of our arms that can twiddle, twist, and grasp objects in the material world. Of course, somewhere along the evolutionary timeline an ancestor realised that if you fold your fingers into the palm of your hand you also have a pretty useful offensive or defensive weapon, and so the fist was born. The fist has rooted itself in our psychology and for around a century or so has come to represent resistance and unity. Aside from aggression and symbolism though, a new study has found that the fist has at least one other purpose.

In this study. right-handed participants were recruited and asked to memorise 72 words. The subjects were then assigned to one of five groups. One group clenched their right fist for 90 seconds before memorising the words and then did the same before recalling the words. The second group clenched their left hand before memorising and clenched their left hand again before recalling. Group three clenched their right before memorising and their left hand before recall and group four clenched their left hand before memorising and the right hand before recalling. The fifth group did not clench their fists at all.

In the end, it was the people who clenched their right fist when memorising words and their left fist when recalling words that did better than all the other groups.

We know that when you clench a fist you increase activity in the “contralateral” frontal lobe in your brain. In other words clenching your right fist increases activity in your left frontal lobe and vice versa. When you increase the activity in that lobe you also increase whatever functions that lobe performs. So clenching your right fist increases activity in the left frontal lobe thereby increasing your capacity to commit things to memory. By contrast, clenching your left fist increases activity in the right frontal lobe and improves your capacity to recall existing memories.

So clenching your fist can improve your overall memory. Of course, we should not forget Gandhi’s statement that you can’t shake hands with a closed fist. After all, it is more important to make friends than to remember why you have enemies.