| Abstract: | Environmental Context effects refer to experimental findings that recall of learned material is better if it takes place in the original learning environment rather than in a changed physical environment. Eich (1985) demonstrated that the EC effect can be produced by a conscious memory strategy (method of loci), and has questioned whether the learning environment would become associated with a memory trace in the absence of such a conscious strategy. Anecdotal data, in contrast with Eich’s explanation, indicated that at least in some situations EC effects can be found without the use of a conscious memory strategy. Explicit memory measures tap conscious memory processes which may override effects of background context cues. A strategy-free test (i.e. implicit memory measure may better reveal unintentionally encoded contextual associations. In the present experiment, the EC effect was examined using a homophone spelling task which has often been used as an implicit memory measure (Eich, 1984; Jacoby & Witherspoon, 1982). EC effects were found with the implicit measure even when not present on an explicit recognition test. Implications for Eich’s theory as well as Tulving’s episodic/semantic distinction are discussed. |
|---|