Encoding specificity principle: Difference between revisions

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The '''encoding specificity principle''' is the general principle that matching the encoding contexts of information at recall assists in the retrieval of [[Episodic memory|episodic memories]]. It provides a framework for understanding how the conditions present while [[Encoding (memory)|encoding]] information relate to [[memory]] and [[Recollection|recall]] of that information.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Tulving|first=Endel|author2=Donald Thomson|s2cid=14879511|title=Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory|journal=Psychological Review|year=1973|volume=80|issue=5|pages=352–373|doi=10.1037/h0020071}} {{verify source |date=September 2019 |reason=This ref was deleted Special:Diff/889862721 by a bug in VisualEditor and later restored by a bot from the original cite located at Special:Permalink/884039838 cite #1 - verify the cite is accurate and delete this template. [[User:GreenC bot/Job 18]]}}</ref>

It was introduced by Thomson and [[Endel Tulving|Tulving]] who suggested that contextual information is encoded with memories which affectsaffect the retrieval of that memoriesprocess. When a person uses information stored in their memory it is necessary that the information is accessible. The accessibility is governed by retrieval cues, these cues are dependent on the encoding pattern; the specific encoding pattern may vary from instance to instance, even if nominally the item is the same, as encoding depends on the context. This conclusion was drawn from a recognition-memory task.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Tulving|first1=Endel|last2=Thomson|first2=Donald M.|date=1971|title=Retrieval processes in recognition memory: Effects of associative context.|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology|volume=87|issue=1|pages=116–124|doi=10.1037/h0030186|issn=0022-1015}}</ref> A series of psychological experiments were undertaken in the 1970s which continued this work and further showed that context affects our ability to recall information.

The context may refer to the context in which the information was encoded, the physical ___location or surroundings, as well as the mental or physical state of the individual at the time of encoding. This principle plays a significant role in both the concept of [[context-dependent memory]] and the concept of [[state-dependent memory]].

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==Development of the Concept==

[[Hermann Ebbinghaus|Ebbinghaus]], a pioneer of research into memory, noted that associations between items aids recall of information thus the internal context of a list matters. This is because we look for any connection that helps us combine items into meaningful units. This started a lot of research into lists of to-be-remembered (tbr) words, and cues that helped them. In 1968 Tulving and Osler made participants memorise a list of 24 tbr words in the absence or presence of cue words. The cue words facilitated recall when present in the input and output of memorising and recalling the words. They concluded that specific retrieval cues can aid recall if the information of their relation to the tbr words is stored at the same time as the words on the list.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Tulving|first1=Endel|last2=Osler|first2=Shirley|date=1968|title=Effectiveness of retrieval cues in memory for words.|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology|volume=77|issue=4|pages=593–601|doi=10.1037/h0026069|pmid=5672271|issn=0022-1015}}</ref> Tulving and ThompsonThomson studied the effect of the change in context of the tbr by adding, deleting and replacing context words. This resulted in a reduction in the level of recognition performance when the context changed, even though the available information remained context. This led to the encoding specificity principle.<ref name=":0" />

==Role of Semantics==

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=== Diagnosis of disease ===

Patients with [[Alzheimer's disease]] (AD) are unable to effectively process the semantic relationship between two words at encoding to assist in the retrieval process.<ref name="Alzheimer's granholm">{{cite journal|last=Granholm|first=Eric|author2=Nelson Butters|title=Associative encoding and retrieval in Alzheimer's and Huntington's Disease|journal=Brain and Cognition|year=1988|volume=7|issue=3|pages=335–347|doi=10.1016/0278-2626(88)90007-3|pmid=2969744|s2cid=20415261}}</ref> The general population benefits equally from a weakly related cue word as from a strongly related cue word during a recall task, provided the weakly related word was present at encoding. Patients with AD, however, were unable to benefit from the weakly related cue even if it was present at both encoding and retrieval.<ref name="Alzheimer's granholm" /> Instead of relying upon semantic encoding, those with AD presented their most dominant associations to the cue words during recall test. This explains why all AD patients performed well when two strong words were matched together but very poorly when a strong and weak pairs were presented during recall. Deficits in episodic memory are now widely accepted as a characteristic symptom of Alzheimer's disease.<ref name="Alzheimers RI-48">{{cite journal|author=Adam, S.|author2=M. Van der Linden|author3=A. Ivanoiu|author4=A.-C. Juillerat|author5=S. Bechet|author6=E. Salmon|year=2007|title=Optimization of encoding specificity for the diagnosis of early AD: The RI-48 task|journal=Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology|volume=29|issue=5|pages=477–487|doi=10.1080/13803390600775339|pmid=17564913|hdl=2268/28214|s2cid=31325865|url=http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/handle/2268/28214|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

=== Alcohol ===

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=== Advertising ===

The emotional nature of [[advertisements]] affects the rate of recall for the advertised product.<ref name="Advertising">{{cite journal|last=Friestad|first=Marian|author2=Esther Thorson|title=Remembering ads: the effects of encoding strategies, retrieval cues and emotional response|journal=Journal of Consumer Psychology|year=1993|volume=2|issue=1|pages=1–23|doi=10.1016/s1057-7408(08)80072-1}}</ref> When the nature of the advertisement was emotional, an encoding focus on [[episodic memory]] (trying to carefully remember the visual content of the commercial) led to a much higher rate of recall for emotional advertisements. Conversely, al peptions,{{typo help inline|date=April 2020}} preferences of given object advertised) led to a much higher recall of specific advertisements.<ref name="Advertising" /> Empirical evidence regarding the nature of emotional advertising provides the advertising industry with data as to how to contour their ads to maximize recall of advertisements. [[Political advertising]] displays this emotional nature of content. A political advertisement<ref name="Political ad">{{cite web|author=Museum of the Moving Image |title=Daisy |url=http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/peace-little-girl-daisy |publisher=The Living Room Candidate |accessdate=18 November 2011 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140426231953/http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/peace-little-girl-daisy |archivedate=26 April 2014 }}</ref> from Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign is inherently emotional in nature and therefore very easily remembered. If this advertisement re viewed and encoded in an episodic mode, due to its emotional nature, it would be easily recalled because of the mode of memory during the encoding process. This advertisement is a lasting example of emotional advertisements being easily recalled: it aired only once on September 7, 1964, yet is one of the most remembered and famous campaign advertisements to date.

=== Studying ===

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James S. Nairne of Purdue University is the primary opponent of Thomson and Tulving's encoding specificity principle.<ref name=Textbook /> He argues that the encoding-retrieval match is correlational rather than causal and states that many cognitive psychologists consider the principle to be "sacrosanct".<ref name=nairne>{{cite journal|last=Nairne|first=James S.|title=The myth of the encoding-retrieval match|journal=Memory|year=2002|volume=10|issue=5/6|pages=389–395|doi=10.1080/09658210244000216|pmid=12396651|citeseerx=10.1.1.377.6640|s2cid=8085159}}</ref> Nairne suggests that what determines successful memory is cue distinctiveness. He says that good memory may be produced even if there is almost no encoding-retrieval overlap, provided the minimal overlap is highly distinctive.<ref name=nairne /> He characterizes memory as an "active process of discrimination"<ref name=nairne /> and proposes that we use cues to choose between several retrieval candidates. Increasing the encoding-retrieval match improves memory performance, he believes, but only because it increases the probability that distinctive features will come into play.<ref name=nairne />

Phillip Higham has also criticised the design and interpretation of ThompsonThomson and Tulving's original experiments which used strong and weak cues to generate the encoding specificity principle. He states that the use of forced-report retrieval may have resulted in participants responding to the cues positively, not due to them being encoded at the time of learning but due to pre-experimentally derived associations. Suggesting that the word on the list 'came to mind' at the time of the experiment and that anyone could have given the positive answer. This is seen as even more likely with strong cues. This is known as the 'lucky guessing' criticism.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Higham|first=Philip A.|date=January 2002|title=Strong cues are not necessarily weak: Thomson and Tulving (1970) and the encoding specificity principle revisited|journal=Memory & Cognition|volume=30|issue=1|pages=67–80|doi=10.3758/bf03195266|pmid=11958356|issn=0090-502X|doi-access=free}}</ref>

In 1975 [[Leo Postman]] conducted experiments on the encoding specificity principle to check the generalisability of the concept. The first experiment focused on the normative strength go the cues presented on the encoding and recall of words and the second on the presence of weak cues in seconding and recall. The results of the experiments failed to support the encoding specificity principle as strong extra-list cues facilitated the recall of tbr words in the presence of weak encoded cues and recall of the original weak encoded cues failed to be recognised in the context of new strong cues.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Postman|first=Leo|date=November 1975|title=Tests of the generality of the principle of encoding specificity|journal=Memory & Cognition|volume=3|issue=6|pages=663–672|doi=10.3758/bf03198232|pmid=24203908|issn=0090-502X|doi-access=free}}</ref>