Prática de lembrar e memória contextual: uma avaliação da teoria do contexto episódico

Abstract

Retrieval practice is a particularly advantageous learning strategy, where the effort to retrieve information (such as in answering test questions) seems to improve retention for said information. Among the possible explanations that seek to understand it's cognitive mechanisms, we have the episodic context account. This theory understands that the contextual information present during initial learning is merged with the contextual information of posterior retrieval attempts, creating a merged context that facilitates future retrievals, as it restricts the memory search set. Here, we directly investigate the contextual memory associated with both of the key moments of retrieval practice: the study phase (initial presentation of the information) and review (seeing the information again through retrieval or restudy). In three experiments, participants (total n = 88) learned a word list and reviewed it either through retrieval practice or restudy. A final test followed after 24 hours, assessing item memory and contextual memory, revealing that while retrieval practice leads to better retention of the studied information, this happens without an accompanying improvement of contextual memory. This finding is at odds with the episodic context account, leading to important theoretical implications that are discussed herein.