A major principle of episodic memory is that stimuli are associated with the context in which they are experienced. Many variables may make up this context, including internal states such as mood, and external states such as the surrounding environment. By manipulating elements of the context in which memories are stored, we can gain insight into the mechanisms by which stimuli are organized in memory. While a large literature has examined the effect of large changes in environmental context on memory performance in free recall (see Smith, 1988 for review), less attention has been paid to the influence of spatial proximity in this paradigm. In the current experiment, subjects deliver items to a series of locations in a virtual town, playing the role of a delivery person. At the end of each list the subject is asked to recall the set of delivered objects. We used a permutation procedure to assess the degree to which successive recalls came from nearby spatial locations. It was found that there was indeed a tendency for subjects to cluster the recall of items by spatial proximity. These results are consistent with a model of the memory system in which items are associated with a spatial representation that is similar for nearby points in the environment, which then can serve as a cue influencing memory retrieval. |