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|url=https://semanticscholar.org/paper/e31a771cc15bd4d67bad13a6af0514f80c2d4028}} {{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 effects the retrieval of said memories. 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|lastlast1=Tulving|firstfirst1=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|lastlast1=Tulving|firstfirst1=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 Thompson 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==

[[Semantics]] do not always play a role in encoding specificity; memory, rather, depends upon the context at encoding and retrieval.<ref name="Semantics revisited">{{cite journal|last=Hannon|first=Brenda|author2=Fergus Craik|s2cid=17570987|year=2001|title=Encoding specificity revisited: The role of semantics|journal=Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology|volume=55|issue=3|pages=231–243|doi=10.1037/h0087369|pmid=11605558|url=https://semanticscholar.org/paper/6439f0acfd5bad4c22e1d0bd47d97c3de9d51aad}}</ref> Early research has shown that semantically related cues should be effective in retrieving a word provided the semantic cue was encoded along with the target word. If the semantically related word is not present at the time of encoding, it will not be efficient at cuing recall for the target word.<ref name="Semantic Interpretation">{{cite journal|last=Reder|first=Lynne|author2=John Anderson |author3=Robert Bjork |title=A semantic interpretation of encoding specificity|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology|year=1974|volume=102|issue=4|pages=648–656|doi=10.1037/h0036115}}</ref>

In a laboratory study, a subject presented with an unrelated word pair is able to recall a target word with much more accuracy when prompted with the unrelated word it was matched with at the time of encoding, than if presented with a semantically related word that was not available during the time of encoding.<ref name="Semantics revisited" /> During a recall task, people benefit equally from a weakly related cue word as from a strongly related cue word, provided the weakly related word was present at encoding.<ref name="Semantic Interpretation" />

Regardless of semantic relatedness of the paired words, participants more effectively recalled target words that had been primed when prompted for recall.<ref name="Tulving">{{cite journal|last=Tulving|first=Endel|author2=Donald Thomson|s2cid=14879511|year=1973|title=Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory|journal=Psychological Review|volume=80|issue=5|pages=352–373|doi=10.1037/h0020071|url=https://semanticscholar.org/paper/e31a771cc15bd4d67bad13a6af0514f80c2d4028}}</ref> Many of the following experiments employed a method modeled off of Thomson and Tulving's. All, however, had slight variations which allowed the researchers to discover their own individual findings. The following table shows the importance of priming through word pairs to achieve enhanced recall of words encoded together.<ref name="Two-Phase Model">{{cite journal|last=Bahrick|first=Harry|title=Two-phase model for prompted recall|journal=Psychological Review|year=1970|volume=77|issue=3|pages=215–222|doi=10.1037/h0029099}}</ref>

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'''Language and the voluntary retrieval of autobiographical memories'''

[[Autobiographical memory|Autobiographical memories]] are more accessible when the language at encoding and recall match.<ref name="Autobiographical memory">{{cite journal|last=Marian|first=Viorica|author2=Ulric Neisser|s2cid=4107490|title=Language Dependent recall of autobiographical memories|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology|year=2000|volume=129|issue=3|pages=361–368|doi=10.1037/0096-3445.129.3.361 |url=https://semanticscholar.org/paper/93879d7b200d1950089ea48a7554ec63c76e230f}}</ref> Researchers conducted interviews with Russian and English speaking bilingual students in both languages and asked participants to retrieve the first memory that comes to mind when hearing a generic word in either language. They found that when presented with Russian-language cues, participants recalled memories that occurred in a Russian-speaking environment and when presented with English-language cues, they easily recalled memories from English-speaking contexts.<ref name="Autobiographical memory" /> This is first because the cue words may have been spoken during the original event that the participant was remembering; hearing the word at encoding and again at retrieval may have been a sufficient cue to bring the memory to mind. Second, this phenomenon may be due to the general language-created ambiance of the situation in which participants were tested rather than the specific associations to individual cue words.<ref name="Autobiographical memory" />

== Specific Examples ==

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==Criticism==

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}}</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 Thompson 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>