Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Stimulus generalization, context change, and forgetting.

M E Bouton1, J B Nelson, J M Rosas

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Vermont, Burlington 05405, USA. mbouton@zoo.uvm.edu

Psychological Bulletin
|March 24, 1999
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Perceptual learning after test-stimulus exposure in humans.

Behavioural processes·2019
Same author

DHX15 promotes prostate cancer progression by stimulating Siah2-mediated ubiquitination of androgen receptor.

Oncogene·2017
Same author

A system for detecting high impact-low frequency mutations in primary tumors and metastases.

Oncogene·2017
Same author

EAF2 regulates DNA repair through Ku70/Ku80 in the prostate.

Oncogene·2016
Same author

The effect of context change upon long-term memory of CS duration.

Behavioural processes·2014
Same author

Concomitant loss of EAF2/U19 and Pten synergistically promotes prostate carcinogenesis in the mouse model.

Oncogene·2013
Same journal

Does the variance of personality traits change across the lifespan? A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies.

Psychological bulletin·2026
Same journal

Artificial intelligence as a partner in meta-analysis-Research agenda, user recommendations, and speed-accuracy tradeoffs: Commentary on Jansen et al. (2025).

Psychological bulletin·2026
Same journal

Relationships between cognition and daily functioning in adults with bipolar disorder: A systematic review and multilevel meta-analysis.

Psychological bulletin·2026
Same journal

The association between reading anxiety and reading achievement: A meta-analysis and systematic review.

Psychological bulletin·2026
Same journal

Perfectionism is accelerating over time: A cross-temporal meta-analytic review of 35 years of college student data.

Psychological bulletin·2026
Same journal

High math anxiety is associated with lower math achievement across 90 countries: An individual participant data meta-analysis of representative student and adult samples.

Psychological bulletin·2026
See all related articles

Forgetting may not always be due to changing contexts. Increased stimulus generalization over time can make contexts interchangeable, potentially masking context-change effects in memory retrieval.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Learning and Memory

Background:

  • Forgetting is commonly explained by retrieval failure linked to changing background contextual cues.
  • An alternative perspective suggests that over time, stimuli may generalize, becoming interchangeable.
  • This stimulus generalization could potentially counteract or mask the effects of context changes on memory.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To review evidence regarding the interplay between context-change effects and stimulus generalization in forgetting.
  • To resolve the apparent paradox between context-dependent forgetting and increasing stimulus interchangeability over time.
  • To evaluate the robustness of context-change as an explanation for forgetting in learning and memory experiments.

Main Methods:

Related Experiment Videos

  • Systematic review of existing literature on forgetting, context-dependency, and stimulus generalization.
  • Analysis of studies examining changes in generalization gradients over time with contextual cues.
  • Evaluation of alternative interpretations for observed forgetting phenomena in experimental settings.

    • Main Results:

    • Changes in generalization gradients over time do not consistently support a context-change explanation for forgetting.
    • Increased responding to nontarget stimuli due to generalization is not frequently observed.
    • Few studies provide conclusive evidence for context-specific generalization changes that rule out other interpretations.

    Conclusions:

    • The effect of stimulus generalization on context-change effects in forgetting is not always strong.
    • Retrieval failure remains a plausible explanation for forgetting, even when contexts appear to change.
    • Forgetting within experiments does not inherently challenge the context-change account of memory loss.