Method: Divers had to learn some new verbal material.
Conditions:
Training either ON LAND or UNDERWATER
Testing either ON LAND or UNDER WATER (2x2 design)
Results
Percentage of Words Correctly Recalled:
Test Condition:
On land: Training Condition:
On land: 13.5 (HIGH)
Under water: 8.4 (LOW)
Under water: Training Condition:
On land: 8.6 (LOW)
Under water: 11.4 (HIGH)
People do best when tested in the same conditions in which they were trained.
Interpretation
In some cases (e.g., early in the learning process), context or environment in which one learns about a topic becomes connected to the learned material of the topic itself.
Thus, in these cases, one can more easily remember the material when they’re in the environment in which they learned it.
Encoding Specificity
Definition: Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval.
Experiment: Encoding Specificity—Figure-Ground Training Bias (Kanizsa, 1979; Rock, 1983)
Ambiguous Figures
Training: Participants are primed to see either
White figure on black background
Black figure on white background
Testing: Participants are primed to see either:
White figure on black background
Black figure on white background
Test question: “Did you see this picture during training?”
Sample Stimuli
Training: Name each object:
TREE
CAR
VASE
Test: Did you see the following image during training?
YES
YES
NO
Results
In cases with a switch between training and test (e.g., train white on black, test black on white) participants failed to recognize the ambiguous images (but they did not fail to recognize the unambiguous images like the tree).
Interpretation
People do not encode raw sensations. They encode their interpretation of those sensations.
Therefore, if the same stimulus is presented in a different perceptual framework (e.g., testing on the same training items with inverse colors) they struggle to remember it.
Q: What is the link between Encoding Specificity and Top-Down effects?
Summary
We’ve seen two pieces of evidence that the relationship between the way information is acquired and the way it is retrieved is important for effective recall…
Encoding specificity
State-dependent learning
Review of Memory Phenomena
Depth of Processing (e.g., HOUSE-plate, HOUSE-LOUSE, HOUSE-DWELLING)