To address questions about human memory's dependence on the coincidental environmental contexts in which events occur, we review studies of incidental environmental context-dependent memory in humans and report a meta-analysis.Our theoretical approach to the issue stems from Glenberg' s (1997) contention that introspective thought (e.g., remembering, conceptualizing) requires cognitive resources normally used to represent the immediate environment. We propose that if tasks encourage processing of noncontextual information (i.e., introspective thought) at input and/or at test, then both learning and memory will be less dependent on the ambient environmental contexts in which those activities occur. The meta-analysis showed that across all studies, environmental context effects were reliable, and furthermore, that the use of noncontextual cues during learning (overshadowing) and at test (outshining), as well as mental reinstatement of appropriate context cues at test, all reduce the effect of environmental manipulations. We conclude that environmental context-dependent memory effects are less likely to occur under conditions in which the immediate environment is likely to be suppressed.

Reminiscence, the recall of material that was not successfully recalled on a previous attempt, was examined in three experiments as a function of the interest (incubation) interval. Incubation intervals inserted between successive recall tests resulted in increased reminiscence, but the effect was seen primarily in the first retested minute. Neither the duration of the initial test (1-4 min), nor the incubation activity (maze problems vs. rest) affected this incubated reminiscence effect. The results support models in which recall tests cause output interference, but incubation intervals reduce it.

The present study helped resolve the apparent conflict between many laboratory list-learning studies, which have not found environmental context-dependent recognition memory, and staged field studies (e.g. Malpass and Devine, 1981), whose results with 'guided memory' techniques suggest that eyewitness face recognition should depend upon environmental context reinstatement. It was found in two different experiments that, relative to testing in a new place, returning participants to the environment where a live staged event had occurred improved performance on identification of a confederate's face (i.e., hit rate). Although physical reinstatement improved identification performance in Experiment 1, mental reinstatement instructions to subjects tested in a new environment did not improve identification performance over an uninstructed group. The environmental reinstatement effect did not interact with test delay or confederate. In Experiment 2 it was found that environmental reinstatement improved accuracy (hit rate and foil identification rate) when the correct target was present in the test line-up, and that false identifications were not significantly affected by contextual manipulations when the correct target was absent from the line-up. The results provide an empirical basis for the hypothesis that returning to the scene of an event improves eyewitness face recognition.Does returning to the scene of an event enhance a witness' memory? The experimental literature related to this issue does not offer a clear answer about the mnemonic effects of returning to the scene of an event. List-learning studies of contextual reinstatement disagree, in general, with what might be predicted from the results of staged field studies concerning the effect of physical reinstatement of an environment on recognition memory. Studies using lists of words or other verbal materials (e.g. Smith, Glenberg, and Bjork, 1978;Godden and Baddeley, 1980) have typically found no effect of environmental manipulations on recognition memory. In apparent contrast, staged field studies have shown face recognition improvements from techniques which involve a composite of mental reinstatement strategies (e.g. Malpass and Devine, 1981;Krafka and Penrod, 1985), although these field studies have not directly tested environmental resintatement effects on eyewitness recognition. The present study was designed to provide empirical evidence relevant to the question of environmental context-dependent recognition memory, using live events staged and tested in live environmental contexts.The efficacy of context reinstatement procedures for improving eyewitness memory accuracy is an important issue for criminal investigations. Investigative leads for finding criminals and accurate identification of suspects are commonly believed to 08884080/92/020 125-1 5/$01.50

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3 experiments examined the modes of processing used by children and adults in learning family-resemblance categories. The materials were cartoon faces (Experiments 1 and 2) and bugs (Experiment 3) divided into categories that possessed no single defining attributes, but rather several characteristic attributes that were each partially predictive of category membership. The categories were structured so that a holistic mode of processing in which the individual did not selectively weight any given attributes could have led to success. Nevertheless, preschoolers (Experiments 2 and 3), first and third graders (Experiment 1), and adult college students (all experiments) all exhibited primarily analytic modes of learning that consisted of single- and dual-attribute approaches. Although the proportion of analytic learners among the preschoolers was lower than among the adults in Experiment 3, in no case were holistic modes of learning evident. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for young children's apparent relative success in learning natural categories. It is suggested that children's success in learning real-world categories may be based, in part, on an interaction between a basically analytic processing style and natural category structures that provide many partially informative attributes.