As we return to school and work from blissful relaxation, one of our anxieties is how we’ll get the information we once knew back into our heads. An elegant experiment from the 1970s might give us some reassurance, particularly if we’ve just been on the beach.
Alan Baddeley worked with divers to see what the effect of context was on recall. The divers were given two lists of words to remember, one set on dry land and one set underwater. They were then tested on both sets in each environment. The results clearly showed they were better at recalling things when in the context where they learned them. The words had no relation to water or land so the effect had nothing to do with the content.
The way we encode and retrieve is all about linking details together, so what is learned in, say, the classroom or the office, is easier to retrieve in those places than on a beach.
Part of the joy and benefit of holiday is the creativity that arises when the weight of our daily routine is lifted. But don’t worry, when you bump into John from accounts, the full detail of all your budget spreadsheets will come flooding back.
Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
