The encoding specificity principle is used to explain variability in memory retention; it is the concept that memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval. According to Melton3, the elaborate process of memory may be broken down into three stages: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Encoding refers to the process in which information is studied and taken in. A deep semantic processing of information leads to enhanced encoding that is most effective for long-term storage.1 Storage involves the retention of information over time and the formation of a memory representation, also known as a memory trace. However, memory critically depends upon retrieval, which refers to one’s ability to extract information from memory once it has been successfully encoded and stored.
The success of retrieval depends heavily upon what types of retrieval cues are present. Donald M. Thomson and Endel Tulving first proposed the idea that retrieval will be most successful if information available at encoding is also present at retrieval, regardless of how strongly the cues are related to the to-be-remembered words. They theorized that “the memory trace of an event and hence the properties of effective retrieval cue are determined by the specific encoding operations performed by the system on the input stimuli.”2 This hypothesis for understanding how contextual information affects the retrieval of an episodic memory has been proven in a plethora of studies and is now known as the encoding specificity principle.
Basic Methods
Specific Results
Role of Semantics in Encoding Specificity
Encoding Specificity and the Immediate Environment
Physical Environment
Several experiments have revealed context-dependency effects for the encoding specificity principle. D.R. Godden and A.D. Baddeley (1975) wished to research if the physical environment in which an event occurs is part of the memory representation for that event. They hypothesize that a change in environments between encoding and retrieval would be detrimental to memory due to an encoding-retrieval mismatch. Eighteen subjects participated in their study – 13 male and five female members of a university diving club. Five lists of words were recorded on tape; each comprised of 36 unrelated words chosen at random. Divers encoded the words either underwater or on a beach. Later, recall was tested in the environment of original encoding or the alternative environment. The researchers’ results supported the encoding specificity principle: what was learned on the beach was better recalled on the beach, and vice versa.
This context-dependency effect, however, was only observed when employing free-recall methods. The effect was not seen when Godden and Baddeley tested memory with recognition in their 1980 study. This is explained by what is termed the outshining hypothesis: context can be a useful cue for memory but only when it is needed. One will only turn to context as a cue when better cues are unavailable. In recognition tests, cues other than the immediate encoding context and environment are superior, whereas in free-recall tests, the immediate environment serves as the only cue to trigger memory.
Auditory Environment
Grant, Bredahl, Clay, Ferrie, Groves, McDorman, and Dark (1988) suggest that the effects of context-dependency also apply to meaningful text material rather than simply lists of unrelated words. They hypothesize that student’s study habits may be harming their exam performance: a typical college student’s study environment often includes background noise while test environments are typically quieter. This mismatch at encoding and retrieval may be detrimental to test performance. To test their predictions, Grant et. al. recruited 39 participants ranging from 17 to 56 years in age. There were 17 females and 23 males. Each participant was to study a basic article on psychoimmunology while wearing headphones. Half the participants would be listening to nothing, while the other half would hear a general conversational hum recorded in a school cafeteria. 16 multiple-choice questions and ten short answer questions were generated to test the material. The short answer test was administered first to ensure that recall from the article rather than recall from the multiple-choice test was being tested. The researchers found that there were context-dependency effects for the newly learned meaningful material independent of test type. In addition, participants who studied with background noise recalled just as much information as students studying in silence. However, whether or not participants studied in the presence of music or not, they always performed better on the test when they were in the same environment for both encoding and retrieval.
Encoding Specificity and the Voluntary Retrieval of Autobiographical Memory
In line with the encoding specificity principle, Marian and Neisser (2000) hypothesized that memories are more accessible when the language at retrieval, like other forms of context, matches the language at encoding. They explore this theory by utilizing 20 Russian-English bilingual students at Cornell University – 9 women and 11 men. Sixteen Russian-English cue word pairs were prepared, such that each member of the pairs was a direct translation of the other. Previous research showed that all words were effective prompts for autobiographical memory (summer, neighbors, birthday, etc). Two word sets were used; half the participants received Set 1 in Russian and Set 2 in English, and half the participants received Set 1 in English and Set 2 in Russian. Participants were individually interviewed twice, once in each language in order to create a specific cultural ambiance. They were told to tell brief stories of specific life events and were prompted with words from the word sets to facilitate the process. The time between the onset of the prompt word and the beginning of the narrative response was recorded.
Marian and Neisser found that participants accessed more Russian memories when interviewed in Russian and more English memories when interviewed in English. They concluded, therefore, that the language used at the time of retrieval and the linguistic encoding-retrieval match influences which memories the bilingual participants will access. The researchers gave two possible reasons for this finding. First, the set 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, their finding may be due to the general language-created ambiance of the room rather than the specific associations to individual cue words. Therefore, memories are more accessible when the language of encoding and recall are similar rather than different; this is not only a result of associations to specific word prompts but also the overall linguistic ambiance and recall. Thus Marian and Neisser found results supporting Thomson and Tulving’s encoding specificity principle: memory recall is superior when two contexts are the same rather than different.
Encoding Specificity and Drugs
Encoding Specificity and the Diagnosis of Disease
Encoding Specificity and Advertising
Encoding Specificity and Social Cognition
Encoding Specificity and Deja Vu
Criticism
The encoding specificity principle is a theory about human memory in cognitive psychology. The theory states that retrieval cues will be most effective if they contain features that overlap with the to-be-remembered memory trace, which in turn has features that are primarily determined by the specific conditions of its initial encoding. The concept was developed by the memory researcher Endel Tulving.
Tulving's theory of "encoding specificity" emphasizes the importance of retrieval cues in accessing episodic memories. The theory states that effective retrieval cues must overlap with the to-be-retrieved memor y trace. Because the contents of the memory trace are primarily established during the initial encoding of the experience, retrieval cues will be maximally effective if they are similar to this encoded information. Tulving has dubbed the process through which a retrieval cue activates a stored memory "synergistic ecphory."
Initial evidence for the encoding specificity principle came from cued recall experiments using word lists. The principle also is supported by many related experimental phenomena (e.g., the recognition failure of recallable words, state-dependent learning, transfer-appropriate processing). More recently, Tulving has argued that the appropriate retrieval cues are necessary but not sufficient to retrieve episodic memories. One also must be in a "retrieval mode" or a remembering state of mind. Empirical evidence for this theory is not as strong as that for the encoding specificity.
One implication of the encoding specificity principle is that forgetting may be caused by the lack of appropriate retrieval cues, as opposed to decay of a memory trace over time or interference from other memories. Another implication is that there is more information stored in memory relative to what can be retrieved at any given point (i.e., availability vs. accessibility).
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