A training academy for deep-sea technicians conducted an experiment to see how environmental cues affect the recall of emergency procedures. A group of forty trainees learned critical valve-shutdown protocols either inside a highly pressurized, vibrating diving-bell simulator with low red lighting, or in a quiet, brightly-lit standard classroom. During a subsequent mock-emergency assessment, half of each group was tested inside the diving-bell simulator, while the other half was tested in the quiet classroom. The instructors found that trainees who learned and were tested in matching environmental conditions (diving-bell/diving-bell or classroom/classroom) made significantly fewer mistakes than those in mismatching conditions.
Outline how this research scenario can be linked to Grant et al.’s (1998) study into context-dependent memory.
