Context Effect

A context effect, in memory research, is the influence of the surrounding physical or mental environment present at the time information is encoded on a person's later ability to retrieve that information, such that memory performance improves when the context present during recall matches the context present during learning. The psychologists Duncan Godden and Alan Baddeley demonstrated a particularly striking example in a 1975 study of deep-sea divers, finding that word lists learned underwater were recalled better underwater than on land, and word lists learned on land were recalled better on land than underwater, an effect known as context-dependent memory. Context effects have since been documented for a range of environmental and internal states, including mood and physiological state, and they are cited in educational and forensic psychology as one reason recall can be improved by mentally or physically reinstating the conditions present during original learning.