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Eliminating Context-Dependent Forgetting: Changing Contexts can be as Effective as Reinstating Them

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Abstract

Standard context-dependent memory studies have shown that when information is encoded in a certain environmental context (EC), recall performance is weakened when retrieval occurs in a different, rather than the same, EC. Here, we show that this contextdependent forgetting can be eliminated using mental imagery at encoding. In two studies, participants used mental visualization of the retrieval EC during the encoding process. The results of the first study highlighted the importance of context familiarity. When familiarity was controlled in the second study, users of the mental visualization technique who encoded and retrieved in different EGs showed no context-dependent forgetting as compared with participants who encoded and retrieved in the same EC. These findings suggest that information can become linked with mental images of EGs such that the physical instantiation of an imagined EC can function as effectively as physical EC reinstatement and eliminate context-dependent forgetting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Liverpool, Eleanor Rathbone Building, Bedford Street South, Liverpool, L69 7ZA, UK

    Simon Chu, Victoria Handley & Simon R. Cooper

Authors
  1. Simon Chu
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  2. Victoria Handley
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  3. Simon R. Cooper
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Simon R. Cooper.

Additional information

We are grateful to Ben Kirby and Vivien Lee for assistance in the collection of part of the data for this research.

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Chu, S., Handley, V. & Cooper, S.R. Eliminating Context-Dependent Forgetting: Changing Contexts can be as Effective as Reinstating Them. Psychol Rec 53, 549–559 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395452

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395452

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