People often report an annoying memory failure when they walk from one end of the house to the other for something and then forgetting what they went to retrieve when they reach their destination.As soon as they return to the first room, they are reminded of what they wanted in the first place.This common experience best illustrates the principle of
A) the self-reference effect.
B) maintenance rehearsal.
C) levels of processing theory.
D) encoding specificity.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This scenario best illustrates the principle of encoding specificity, where memory retrieval is enhanced when the context at the time of retrieval matches the context present when the memory was originally encoded. In this case, the person has forgotten the item they were looking for because the context has changed (moving from one room to another), but returning to the original context reminds them of the item they needed.

People Often Report an Annoying Memory Failure When They Walk