Glossary / Lexicon
Encoding specificity
Encoding specificity is defined as a principle of retrieval asserted by Tulving: At the time material is first put into long-term memory, it is encoded in a particular way, depending on the context present at the time; at the time of recall, the person is at a great advantage if the same information available at encoding is once again available.
Encoding specificity means what is recalled depends on what is encoded.