ABSTRACT
Utilization or retrieval of information in human episodic memory (Tulving, 1972) depends in part for its success on the drug-induced state of the individual at the time of (a) encoding and storage of the information and (b) its attempted utilization. A person asked to remember a simple event such as the appearance of a familiar word in an otherwise unfamiliar list or collection of other words, typically shows impaired retrieval for the word-event when his state is changed between the study and test sessions of the experiment, in comparison with conditions where his state remains the same on both occasions. This interaction of drug states at study and at test defines a phenomenon of human memory that customarily is referred to as dissociated or state-dependent learning. But since it is clearly the congruence of drug states present at study and at test that is responsible for the phenomenon (Melton, 1963; Tulving, 1968), state-dependent retrieval or utilization of information about the occurrence of perceptual episodes or events would seem to be a more appropriate expression (Wickelgren, 1975).
