Presentation Type
Poster
When Environmental Contexts Do Not Match: A Strategy of Preinstatement for Improve Recall
Abstract
Negative effects of a change in environmental context effects are common memory research (Smith & Vela, 2001). However, they may be overcome if the context in which the event occurred can be mentally reinstated, and the authors propose that one may at the time an event occurs “preinstate” the context in which one anticipates that one may need to remember the event. In this experiment, one group of participants imagined the test environment while studying a list of words, and another group did not. Memory was tested either in the same or a different environment in which study occurred. Free recalled was compared between the same and different context conditions. The results suggest that a strategy of preinstatement offers a pragmatic alternative for scholastic study, and may be a generalizable strategy for other applications, such as in the treatment of phobias and other behavioral modification treatments.
Categories
Social Sciences
Research Type
Thesis
Mentor Information
Melissa Lehman, M.A. mslehman@gmail.com
When Environmental Contexts Do Not Match: A Strategy of Preinstatement for Improve Recall
Negative effects of a change in environmental context effects are common memory research (Smith & Vela, 2001). However, they may be overcome if the context in which the event occurred can be mentally reinstated, and the authors propose that one may at the time an event occurs “preinstate” the context in which one anticipates that one may need to remember the event. In this experiment, one group of participants imagined the test environment while studying a list of words, and another group did not. Memory was tested either in the same or a different environment in which study occurred. Free recalled was compared between the same and different context conditions. The results suggest that a strategy of preinstatement offers a pragmatic alternative for scholastic study, and may be a generalizable strategy for other applications, such as in the treatment of phobias and other behavioral modification treatments.
