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Retrieval Cues and Encoding Specificity

A public GRE Psychology question showing why a recall failure is often a retrieval-cue problem rather than evidence that the memory was never stored.

Question

Students who studied a word list in a quiet room recalled more of it when tested in that same quiet room than when tested in a noisy one, even though both groups studied identically. Which account best explains the difference?

  1. a.The noisy-room group never encoded the words
  2. b.Context present at encoding served as a retrieval cue at test
  3. c.The quiet-room group had a larger short-term memory capacity
  4. d.The noise erased the stored memory traces

Correct answer

B. Context present at encoding served as a retrieval cue at test

Full reasoning

  1. 1Encoding was held constant across groups, so the manipulation is at retrieval, not at storage.
  2. 2Contextual features are encoded with the material, so a matching test context reinstates cues that were available when the memory was formed.
  3. 3That makes the result a retrieval-failure effect: the information is stored but inaccessible without the right cue.
  4. 4A design that also varied study context would separate encoding effects from retrieval effects directly.

Why each choice is right or wrong

Choice A

Both groups studied under identical conditions, so encoding was matched by design. Something after encoding has to account for the difference.

Choice B

Correct. Features of the study context are encoded alongside the material, so reinstating them at test supplies cues that make the stored items accessible.

Choice C

Capacity was not manipulated and would not vary systematically with the room assigned at test. This explanation also cannot be checked from the described design.

Choice D

Recall recovers when the original context is restored, which is exactly what an erased trace would not permit.

Related formula

Related topic and practice

Memory Systems and ProcessesClassical and Operant ConditioningCreate a free account to practice

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Sources

Authored for this public explainer registry. It has no database question ID and is not copied from a protected or official exam bank.

  1. Psychology 2e, Section 8.1: How Memory Functions — OpenStax. Accessed 2026-08-03. OpenStax textbook content is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; attribute and avoid verbatim reuse beyond short cited references.
  2. Psychology 2e, Section 8.3: Problems with Memory — OpenStax. Accessed 2026-08-03. OpenStax textbook content is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; attribute and avoid verbatim reuse beyond short cited references.
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Sources last checked 2026-08-15

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