THE EFFECT
Same place, slightly better
A 2001 meta-analysis of 93 effect sizes from 75 studies found changing the surroundings between learning and testing reliably affects memory, with an average effect of d = 0.28.
When it growsWHAT THE MEMORY RESEARCH SAYS
Does the room
remember for you?
The place you learn leaves a faint mark on the memory.
d ≈ 0.28 the average place effect
0.28 d Average effect of changing the setting
- Place helps, a little
- Picture where you learned
- Practise in more than one place
- Memory that travels with you
Psychologists call it environmental context-dependent memory: recall can be a little better back in the place where you learned. Decades of studies show the effect is real but usually modest, and that it shrinks when your attention is on the material rather than the room.
THE SHORT ANSWER
Real, but
usually small.
Context cues help memory most
when little else is there to cue it.
THE FAMOUS STUDY
The divers, retested
In 1975, divers recalled words best in the place they learned them, on land or underwater. A 2021 replication with 16 divers did not find that same-place advantage.
See the numbers
THE TWIST
Vary it, then test yourself
In a 2014 study, practising recall against a different background each time led to better final recall than one constant background, but only with retrieval practice, not restudy.
What followsWHEN DOES PLACE MATTER?
How big is the
place effect?
Pick a situation to see the average effect size the meta-analysis found. The bar shows how much the setting mattered.
Effect sizes (Cohen's d) from Smith and Vela (2001), Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
WHAT THE FINDINGS SUGGEST
Make memories
that travel.
The research points to a few ways of learning so that recall depends less on one particular room.
Don't fear the new room
The average place effect is modest, and it was missing altogether in the 2021 diver replication.
Picture where you learned
Mental reinstatement instructions improved memory in the studies reviewed, almost matching a real return.
Test yourself in varied places
Retrieval practice against changing backgrounds gave better final recall than one constant background.
Connect the ideas
Linking items to each other while learning made memory less dependent on the surroundings.
TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING
A modest effect,
a famous retest.
One figure from 75 studies,
one from a pool in Amsterdam.
0.28 d
Average effect of changing the setting
Across 93 effect sizes from 41 articles, recall was reliably better in the original setting, but the effects varied a lot. Encoding and test conditions that pull attention away from the room made the effect smaller.
META-ANALYSIS · 2001
16 divers
Divers in a repeat of the 1975 experiment
They heard 36-word lists on land or underwater in a 180 cm deep pool, and recalled them 4 minutes later. Recall was no better in the same place than in the other one.
REPLICATION · 2021
The replication's author calculated the original 1975 effect as extremely large (d of at least 2.7). He discusses differences between the two studies, such as open water versus a pool, and stresses the value of repeating classic experiments.
THE VIDEO-BACKGROUND STUDIES
A similar scene
can jog memory.
Later lab studies used videos of places as backgrounds, which produce stronger context effects than older room-change methods. A new, never-seen video of the original study place still helped recall, though less than the original video.
Videos of conceptually similar places, such as two different ball games, also cued recall, but less well when the first scene had been given a specific label that did not fit the second.
Questions
Questions people ask
What is context-dependent memory?
The finding that recall can be better when you are tested in the same surroundings where you learned. A meta-analysis of 75 studies found the effect is reliable but usually modest.
Did the underwater diver study replicate?
Not in the one published attempt. A 2021 replication with 16 divers in a swimming pool found no advantage for recalling in the same place as learning.
Should I revise in the exam room?
The research does not require it. The average place effect is small, and imagining the room where you learned gave nearly as large an effect as being there.
Does changing where I study help?
In a 2014 study, retrieval practice in varied contexts led to better final recall than a constant context, but varied restudy alone made no difference.
Why is the effect sometimes missing?
The meta-analysis found it shrinks when learning links items together, or when other cues are available at test, so the surroundings are less needed.
Where the facts come from
Updated
- Smith and Vela (2001), Environmental context-dependent memory: a review and meta-analysis, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (PDF)
- Murre (2021), The Godden and Baddeley (1975) experiment on context-dependent memory on land and underwater: a replication, Royal Society Open Science
- Smith and Handy (2014), Effects of varied and constant environmental contexts on acquisition and retention, JEP: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (PDF)
- Smith, Handy, Angello and Manzano (2014), Effects of similarity on environmental context cueing, Memory (PDF)