Divided attention and organization in episodic memory: When using a strategy impairs performance in recall

This study examined the effect of divided attention and retrieval cues on the organizational strategy and on the effectiveness of this strategy on episodic memory performance. Participants learned or recalled a list of organizable words either under divided attention or full attention. Cues were provided (cued recall) or not (free recall) at the retrieval stage. The results showed that the encoding stage was crucial for the organizational strategy to be efficient. The division of attention at encoding leads to an organizational strategy utilization deficiency, defined as a lack of positive correlations between the index of organization and recall, whether retrieval cues are provided or not, which means that even if participants organize the words, they do not recall more words from the learned list. Thus, a strategy utilization deficiency may appear with familiar materials in young adults who learn or recall under particularly restrictive attentional conditions.