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same or the opposite situation. As you can see in Figure 8.12 "Results From Godden and
Baddeley, 1975", the divers’ memory was better when they were tested in the same context in
which they had learned the words than when they were tested in the other context.
Figure 8.12 Results From Godden and Baddeley, 1975
Godden and Baddeley (1975) tested the memory of scuba divers to learn and retrieve information in different
contexts and found strong evidence for context-dependent learning.
Source: Adapted from Godden, D. R., & Baddeley, A. D. (1975). Context-dependent memory in two natural
environments: On land and underwater.British Journal of Psychology, 66(3), 325–331.
You can see that context-dependent learning might also be important in improving your memory.
For instance, you might want to try to study for an exam in a situation that is similar to the one in
which you are going to take the exam.
Whereas context-dependent learning refers to a match in the external situation between learning
and remembering, state-dependent learning refers to superior retrieval of memories when the
individual is in the same physiological or psychological state as during encoding. Research has
found, for instance, that animals that learn a maze while under the influence of one drug tend to
remember their learning better when they are tested under the influence of the same drug than
when they are tested without the drug (Jackson, Koek, & Colpaert, 1992). [8] And research with
humans finds that bilinguals remember better when tested in the same language in which they