Impact
Context effects can have a wide range of impacts in daily life. In reading difficult handwriting context effects are used to determine what letters make up a word. This helps us analyze potentially ambiguous messages and decipher them correctly. It can also affect our perception of unknown sounds based on the noise in the environment. For example, we may fill in a word we cannot make out in a sentence based on the other words we could understand. Context can prime our attitudes and beliefs about certain topics based on current environmental factors and our previous experiences with them.
Context effects can be nullified if we are made consciously aware of the outside stimulus or past history that may influence our decision. For example, a study conducted by Norbet Schwaz and Gerald Clore showed that when asked to rate their overall life satisfaction on either sunny or rainy days, people expressed greater satisfaction on sunny days and less satisfaction on rainy days. However, when people were reminded of the weather their satisfaction rating returned to an almost even distribution. This study demonstrates the effect the environment can have on perception, and that when pointed out, context effects can be nullified.
Context effects also affect memory. We are often better able to recall information in the location in which we learned it or studied it. For example, while studying for a test it is better to study in the environment that the test will be taken in (i.e. classroom) than in a location where the information was not learned and will not need to be recalled. This phenomenon is called transfer-appropriate processing.
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Famous quotes containing the word impact:
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
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—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)