title: Effect of study context on item recollection.
abstract: We examined how visual context information provided during encoding, and unrelated to the target word, affected later recollection for words presented alone using a remember-know paradigm. Experiments 1A and 1B showed that participants had better overall memory-specifically, recollection-for words studied with pictures of intact faces than for words studied with pictures of scrambled or inverted faces. Experiment 2 replicated these results and showed that recollection was higher for words studied with pictures of faces than when no image accompanied the study word. In Experiment 3 participants showed equivalent memory for words studied with unique faces as for those studied with a repeatedly presented face. Results suggest that recollection benefits when visual context information high in meaningful content accompanies study words and that this benefit is not related to the uniqueness of the context. We suggest that participants use elaborative processes to integrate item and meaningful contexts into ensemble information, improving subsequent item recollection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, 200 University Ave. W., University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, Canada. eiskinne@watarts.uwaterloo.ca
authors.forename: Erin I
authors.initials: EI
authors.lastname: Skinner
authors.forename: Myra A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Fernandes
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult