Where you are matters

A diving instructor was puzzled because his divers kept forgetting objects that

they’d found underwater, even when he asked the divers about the objects shortly

after they were back on dry land. To find out why this was the case, some psycholo-

gists conducted an experiment with divers.

The psychologists gave one group of underwater divers a list of words to learn

underwater and gave another group a list to learn on land. They then tested the

divers’ memories of the word list both on land and underwater.

The group that learned the list underwater remembered the list much better in the

water but struggled to remember it on land. In contrast, the group who learned

the list on land had better memories on land but forgot the list when they were

underwater.

This story is a great example of how remembering where you were when you

learned the information can boost your memory.

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