Keynotes | K&Ts | GACs | Talks | Posters | Search

Poster D in Poster Session D: Wednesday, August 5, 2:00 – 3:45 pm, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

Determinants of context-dependent memory effects in humans

Noa L. Hedrich¹, Susanne Haridi², Nicolas W. Schuck¹; ¹Universität Hamburg, ²Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Presenter: Susanne Haridi

Classical studies have shown that memory is better when the context at retrieval matches the context during encoding. Yet how context is operationalised, and the effects it produces, varies substantially across studies. This raises a fundamental question: under what conditions does context reliably influence memory? We present a pilot study (N = 83) with two aims: to test whether binding items to their context during encoding is necessary to produce context-dependent memory, and to validate our paradigm for robustly evoking context effects as a benchmark for future studies. In a free recall task, participants studied words in two contexts, only one of which was reinstated during recall. We manipulated whether attention was guided toward the item, the context, or the binding of both. Recall from the reinstated context was reliably increased across all manipulations. Further, in the binding condition, context-based organisation in recall was slightly enhanced. These results suggest that explicit item-context binding is not necessary for context effects, given current design choices, and validate our paradigm as a baseline for interpreting subsequent studies, which will systematically vary task dimensions to identify the conditions under which context effects reliably emerge.

Topic Area: Memory, Learning & Knowledge Structures