Your brother does something bad to your car while you're at home; this makes you very angry. Rather than have an all-out fight with him, you go off and let yourself calm down. Eventually you forget about the incident and you get along fine with your brother again. However, after several months, you become angry with your roommate for not telling you that your date called. During this you are reminded of what your brother did to your car. This is best described as __________.
A) encoding specificity
B) mood-dependent learning
C) state-dependent learning
D) a generalized emotion memory

Question

Your brother does something bad to your car while you're at home; this makes you very angry. Rather than have an all-out fight with him, you go off and let yourself calm down. Eventually you forget about the incident and you get along fine with your brother again. However, after several months, you become angry with your roommate for not telling you that your date called. During this you are reminded of what your brother did to your car. This is best described as __________.
A) encoding specificity
B) mood-dependent learning 
C) state-dependent learning
D) a generalized emotion memory

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This is an example of mood-dependent learning, where the emotional state at the time of encoding information influences the ability to retrieve that information later on. In this case, the anger experienced during the incident with the brother is linked with the current anger towards the roommate, making the memory of the brother's actions more accessible.

Your Brother Does Something Bad to Your Car While You're