ABSTRACT
This chapter describes work where context is afforded a central status and where context effects are manifest as strengths as well as limitations. It considers the proper relationship among units of analysis in learning and memory research, focusing on relationships between elements or components and compounds. The chapter outlines one theoretical treatment of context that has guided much of the author's research over the last few years. It reviews some of this work, with examples drawn from discrimination learning, memory, and classification learning. The chapter also outlines some further problems and issues associated with context effects in learning and memory. Prototype theory is one instance of a class of categorization theories known as independent cue theories. In the analysis of proactive interference, time was given no special status, being simply treated as an additional dimension along which similarity could be measured.
