Godden and Baddeley Description

The aim was to see whether words would be recalled better in the same environment or in a very different environment
To investigate whetehr a natural environment can act as a cue for recall
18 participants ( divers) were given word lists to learn which were made up of 38 unrelated 2 or 3 syllable words
The words were presented either on the beach or 15 ft under the sea
Participants then had to recall the words in one of four conditions which they were randomly allocated to
Condition 1: learn and recall on the beach
Conditiion 2: learn and recall underwater
Condition 3: learn on the beach and recall underwater
Condition 4: learn underwater and recall on the beach
Recall was about 50% higher when it took place in the same environment as learning
40% more words were forgotten if recall was in a different environment from where learned
The mean number of words recalled in condition 1; 13.5, condition 2; 11.4, condition 3; 8.6 and condition 4; 8.4
The study demonstrates how the environment can act as a contextual cue for learning

Resource summary

	Created by pmfisher1996 over 11 years ago