[EN]The effect of environmental context on episodic memory was examined in
two free recall experiments with groups of old and young subjects. All
subjects studied a list of unrelated words and were subsequently tested in the
same room or in a different room. The results of Experiment 1 showed an
advantage of being tested in the same context for the old subjects, but no
effects of the context manipulation for the young subjects. Experiment 2
replicated this finding and additionally showed that old subjects (but not
young subjects) benefited from instructions to mentally reinstate the
learning context. The results of both experiments are discussed in terms of
the relative value of contextual cues for subjects in each of the two age
groups.
