Abstract: The encoding specificity principle indicates that memory performance is affected by the degree of overlap between the learning context and the test context. Retrieval is facilitated when test conditions match encoding conditions, and this is called “context cuing effect”. The context cuing effect in item recognition was found quite unstable. Some researches proposed that only the ‘‘ensemble information'’ meaningfully integrated and bind uniquely with the item information could be an effective context cue. But so far, most studies in this area focus on the context cuing effect on item memory, few researches were conducted on the context cuing effect on source memory. The present study was conducted to examine in what kind of conditions the context cuing effect does appear when there were multidimensional source memories. In detail, whether the associativity of multidimensional source memories could generate context cuing effect in the retrieval of source memory and whether cue load would affect that course were investigated. Two experiments were conducted. Neuter words composed of two Chinese characters were used as items and background colors were used as context cue. In experiment 1, background locations were used as another dimension of source memory. Twelve college students took part in the experiment executed on a P4 computer. The experiment adopted a 3×3 with-in subject design. Three cue validity conditions (match, mismatch, new) and three cue load conditions (1:1, 1:2, 1:3) were arranged. In the stage of study, a word with a colored background rectangle was present on one location of a watch plate. Participants were instructed to remember the word, the color and the location. And then participants did a task to distract their attention for 90s. In the stage of test, a word with a colored background rectangle was present in the middle of the screen, and participants were asked to judge whether the word was old or new. If they judged that the word was old, then they were asked to point the location where the word was present in the stage of study with mouse. Accuracy rate of response of the location of the old word was recorded. The procedure of experiment 2 was the same as experiment 1 except the dimension of source memory which was background shape. The results indicated that (1) main effect of cue validity condition was not significant in experiment 1 which means background color could not become the context cue to the location source; (2) main effect of cue validity condition and cue load were all significant in experiment 2 which means background color could be used as an effective cue to the background shape; (3) context cue effect decreased as the increase of cue load in experiment 2. The results show that context cue effect could be generated by the associativity of source memories in the retrieval of source memory, which means remembering information of one source dimension will facilitate recalling information of another source dimension when the associativity of the two source dimension is high. Low cue load could promote the emergence of context cue.

Key words: context cuing effect, source memory, multidimensional source information, associativity, cue load

摘要： 探索当存在多维来源信息时，对一个维度的来源信息的再现是否会促进对另一个维度的来源记忆的提取，即出现情境线索效应。以汉字词语作为项目刺激，以背景颜色作为情境线索，通过两个实验分别考察对呈现位置和背景形状的提取是否会出现情境线索效应。结果发现：只在对背景形状的提取中出现了情境线索效应，并且线索负载越高，效应越小。该结果表明对来源记忆提取时，来源信息间的高可结合性是引发情境线索效应的重要因素。

关键词: 情境线索效应, 来源记忆, 多维来源信息, 可结合性, 线索负载