The Effect Of Context Matching Between Encoding And Retrieval On Collaborative Memory

Collaborative memory refers to the memory process in which two or more individuals respond to the given stimulus and complete the recall task together.The discovery of collaborative inhibition shows that collaboration does not always promote memory: the total amount of information retrieval by members of the collaboration group is more than that of any individual,but not as much as that of the same amount of individuals.The current research mainly explains the negative inhibitory effect of collaboration on memory from the perspective of retrieval,and believes that the decline of collaborative memory performance is due to the interference or forgetting of listening to other people’s information in the retrieval stage.However,according to the context matching theory,the consistency of encoding and retrieval situation will affect the level of learning and memory,and the effect is good when they are consistent.Context matching promotes information retrieval,which includes item memory and source memory.Is the effect of collaborative memory also affected by the situational consistency between encoding stage and retrieval stage? In this study,three experiments were conducted to explore the effect of encoding and retrieval context matching on collaborative memory.In Experiment 1,low relevance word pairs were used as learning materials,and adopts 2(encode: collaboration,individual)×2(retrieval: collaboration,individual)two-factor subject design to investigate the collaborative memory performance under the conditions of different encoding and retrieval form matching.The results showed that the interaction between "encoding" and "retrieval".At the level of collaborative encoding,the recall score of the collaborative retrieval group was significantly higher than that of the individual retrieval group(there was no collaborative inhibition),which verified the context matching theory.Experiment 2 used the same design to investigate the effect of context source information matching on collaborative memory under the chapter materials.It was found that the correct number and details of proposition retrieval in the individual collaborative group were significantly higher than those in the individual group,but there was no significant difference with the nominal group(no collaborative inhibition);The more consistent the retrieval stage situation is with the encoding stage situation,the better the effect of collaborative memory is.Experiments 1 and 2 found that the promoting effect of context source information matching on collaborative memory was not stable,which may be caused by the consistency of item-cues in encoding and retrieval stages.Experiment 3 further investigated the effect of item-cue consistency on the promotion of context source information matching in collaborative memory.Experiment 3a used 3(Group:individual,nominal,individual-collaboration)× 2(item-cue: consistent and inconsistent)two-factor subject design.It is found that collaboration inhibition disappears under the condition of consistent item-cue.It is proved that the consistency of item-cue leads to the instability of the promoting effect of context source information matching.Experiment 3b was designed with single factor(item-cue : item cue consistency,item cue inconsistency)subject design.It is found that the recall performance of the collaborative group with source information matching is higher than that of the inconsistent group,which proves that item-cue consistency is one of the limiting conditions for context source information matching to play a role in collaborative memory.At the same time,it also shows that the more context matching in encoding stage and retrieval stage is more conducive to the retrieval of memory content.This study analyzes and discusses the above results under the theoretical framework of context matching theory and retrieval strategy interference hypothesis,and draws the following conclusions:Both word pairs and chapter as experiment materials have context source information matching to promote collaborative memory.There are restrictive conditions for the impact of context source information matching on collaborative memory,in which the consistency of item-cue will affect the promotion of context source information matching in collaborative memory.