In a study, researchers showed undergraduate participants a 15-word list including "bed," "rest," "tired," "awake," "dream," "blanket," and "pillow," presented one second per word. Later, on a surprise recognition test, many participants confidently reported having seen the word "sleep," which had never appeared on the list. Their false-recognition confidence was as high as for words actually presented earlier.
If a follow-up experiment matched study and test contexts (e.g., same room, same mood), what principle would predict improved recall of true list items?
- A
Cocktail party effect
- B
Method of loci
- C
Mere exposure effect
- Dcheck_circle
Encoding specificity principle
Explanation
Encoding specificity holds that retrieval is best when the cues at retrieval match those at encoding, including environmental and internal contexts.