Environmental context and recognition: the role of recollection and familiarity.
Evidence for effects of changed environmental context on recognition has been equivocal. Using 3 experiments, the author investigated the role of environmental context from a dual-processing approach. Experiment 1 showed that testing word recognition in a novel context led to a reliable decrement but only for recognition accompanied by conscious recollection, with familiarity-based recognition judgments being unaffected. This was replicated in Experiment 2 using stimuli that were novel to the participants (nonwords). Experiment 3 showed that the decrement in recollection also occurred when the changed-context condition involved presenting items in a different but familiar context. The results suggest that effects of environmental context will only be found when recognition is accompanied by conscious recollection and that this effect is due to a specific item-context association.
Macken
William J
WJ
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, United Kingdom. macken@cardiff.ac.uk
D000328:Adult; D001245:Association Learning; D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D011336:Probability; D011932:Reading; D014706:Verbal Learning