Environmental context effects in conceptual explicit and implicit memory

Abstract

Previous research has found environmental context effects for both conceptual explicit and conceptual implicit memory (Parker, Gellatly, & Waterman, 1999). The research presented here challenges these findings on methodological grounds. Experiment 1 assessed the effects of context change on category-exemplar generation (conceptual implicit memory test) and category-cued recall (conceptual explicit memory test). Experiment 2 assessed the effects of context change on word association (conceptual implicit memory test) and word associate cued recall (conceptual explicit memory test). In both experiments, study–test changes in environmental context were found to influence performance only on tests of explicit memory. It is concluded that when retrieval cues across explicit and implicit tests are matched, and the probability of explicit contamination is reduced, then only conceptual explicit test performance is reduced by study–test changes in environmental context.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Neil Mulligan, Elinor McKone, Elizabeth Marsh, and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier draft of this article. We also extend our appreciation to Leila Pourjafar and Katherine Woolliscroft for assistance with data collection for Experiment 2.