The interactive effects of instructional set and environmental context changes on the serial position effect

Nixon, Sara Jo; Kanak, N. Jack

doi:10.3758/bf03333614

Cited by 13 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The serial position analysis for the recall of the word list in this study replicated the results of Nixon & Kanak (1981) and Dolinsky & Zabrucky (1983) for the primacy items. The primacy items were better recalled in the different-context condition than in the same-context condition.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

“…However, the results for the recency items in this experiment were not the same. The same-context group did not outperform the different-context group on the recency items in this experiment, as was the case in the experiments by Nixon & Kanak (1981) and Dolinsky & Zabrucky (1983). However, the presentation of the words in booklet format in this experiment may have contributed to this difference in findings.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 52%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Evidence of a negative environmental reinstatement effect

Wilhite

1991

British J of Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Experiment 1 investigated the suggestion that the effect of reinstating the encoding environment at the time of memory retrieval is most likely to influence performance positively when other retrieval cues are not readily available. It was predicted that a positive environmental reinstatement effect would be more likely in college students' memory for a list of words presented in booklet format than for a passage of prose because the inherent organizational structure of the passage would provide a framework for retrieval and make environmental cues relatively unimportant. However, recall of both types of material was greater in the condition in which study and test took place in different environments (p < ·05). In Expt 2, this same negative environmental reinstatement effect was found using auditory presentation of the word list (p < ·05). The results suggest that reinstating the encoding context at the time of retrieval may under certain conditions prompt reliance on overloaded environmental cues at the expense of other potentially more effective retrieval strategies.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 52%

Evidence of a negative environmental reinstatement effect

Wilhite

1991

British J of Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In one of the experiments reported by Smith et al (1978), the highest difference in recall between same and different context was found when the comparison was made for words presented at the end of the learning session. Also, studies by Nixon and Kanak (1981) and by Dolinsky and Zabrucky (1983) suggest a relationship between context-and serial-position effects. We included primacy and recency pairs in the analysis of Experiment 5, in order to directly test the hypothesis that the environmental context selectively affects memory for TBR items presented in different serial positions in the input sequence.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing environmental context does not reliably affect memory

1985

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Numerous recent experiments have provided empirical support for the effect in both human (e.g., Block, 1982;Godden & Baddeley, 1975;Hintzman, Block, & Summers, 1973;Smith, 1979Smith, , 1982Smith, Glenberg, & Bjork, 1978) and animal (e.g., lobe, Mellgren, Feinberg, Littlejohn, & Rigby, 1977) research. However, the superiority of same-context testing has not been found across all experimental paradigms (e.g., recall vs. recognition) or instructional sets (see Block, 1982;Nixon & Kanak, 1981;Smith et al, 1978), indicating that the underlying mechanism or mechanisms governing contextual associations have specifiable boundaries of sensitivity. Most attempts to explain the context effect have been more descriptive than explanatory, and some appear incapable of accounting for all of the available empirical data, especially those explanations that specify a strong "strategy" interpretation.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A theoretical account of the effects of environmental context upon cognitive processes

Nixon

Kanak

1985

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although the environmental context effect typically refers to superior performance in the context of original learning, this result is not consistently found across all experimental paradigms or instructional sets. Thus far, a precise statement ofthe underlying mechanisms and boundaries of the context effect has been absent from the literature, with the research having focused primarily on the robustness of the effect. The current exposition of a theoretical model and interpretation of the environmental context effect not only provides an explanation of the same-context testing superiority, but also provides the necessary parameters allowing for the prediction of situations in which same-context testing should not be superior. Furthermore, the model has implications for complex learning situations which have not been tested in the research literature. The current model is grounded in the principles of classical conditioning. Thus, it is assumed that environmental context stimuli function in the same way that classically conditioned stimuli do and, as such, have effects on the various phenomena and processes associated with classical conditioning (e.g., acquisition, transfer, extinction and spontaneous recovery, and latent inhibition). Furthermore, the saliency of such stimuli should be subject to boundaries analogous to those affecting other conditioned stimuli.The environmental context effect, representing superior memory for information learned and tested in the same as opposed to different environments, has been accorded theoretical significance throughout the history of modern experimental psychology (e.g., McGeoch, 1942;McGovern, 1964). Numerous recent experiments have provided empirical support for the effect in both human (e.g.,

show abstract

The interactive effects of instructional set and environmental context changes on the serial position effect

Cited by 13 publications

References 17 publications

Evidence of a negative environmental reinstatement effect

Evidence of a negative environmental reinstatement effect

Changing environmental context does not reliably affect memory

A theoretical account of the effects of environmental context upon cognitive processes

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About