Kevin likes to study chemistry while listening to his favorite band on his iPod. When he goes to take his first chemistry exam, he finds that his professor does not allow students to listen to their iPods while taking the test. During the test Kevin has difficulty remembering some of the chemistry information he studied, likely because of

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Kevin's difficulty in remembering the chemistry information can be attributed to retrieval failure, specifically the context-dependent memory effect. This phenomenon suggests that recall is better when the contexts at encoding (studying) and retrieval (taking the test) are similar. Since Kevin studied while listening to music and couldn't do so during the exam, the change in context may have hindered his ability to retrieve the studied information.

Kevin Likes to Study Chemistry While Listening to His Favorite