Influence of the degree of context reactivation on retrieval-induced enhancement: A behavioral experiment

When there is low contextual overlap between the encoding context and the retrieval context, selectively retrieving a certain proportion of the studied material enhances recall of the remaining non-retrieved material. This phenomenon is termed the retrieval-induced enhancement effect (RIE). Dual-factor theory posits that context reactivation processes underlie the RIE effect. However, few studies have examined the influence of contextual reactivation on RIE.

This study comprised two experiments. Experiment 1 examined the stability of the RIE effect within a retrieval practice paradigm using a mental context change task. Experiment 2 investigated how varying degrees of context reactivation, elicited by different proportions of retrieved items, influenced RIE.

Results revealed that the concurrent use of the retrieval practice paradigm and the mental context change task reliably produced a stable RIE effect. Furthermore, the magnitude of RIE fluctuated with the proportion of retrieved items, with robust RIE effects emerging only when the retrieval proportion reached 2/5 or higher.

These findings support the context-reactivation account and indicate that the proportion of retrieved items serves as a boundary condition for RIE.