Memory for context, in comparison to memory for items, is a more demanding
task and requires more attentional resources. We examined differences betwe
en item and context memory using divided attention at encoding and retrieva
l. Participants were presented with word lists and were instructed to learn
the items (i.e., words), the intrinsic context (i.e., the colour of the ca
rds on which each word was presented), and the extrinsic context (i.e., the
temporal order of the words). Among 72 young adults, in comparison to cond
itions of full attention, divided attention applied at encoding only or ret
rieval only resulted in equally lower performance on all memory tasks; in c
ontrast, divided attention applied at both encoding and retrieval resulted
in lower performance only on memory for temporal order. The findings suppor
t the idea that memory for temporal order requires greater attentional reso
urces and strategic processing than memory for items.