Godden and Baddeley (1975) conducted a rather well-known study of memory involving divers. The researchers recruited scuba divers as participants and arranged for them to learn a set of words either on land or underwater. Subsequently, their recall was tested either on land or underwater. The results showed that highest recall occurred when the initial context matched the recall environment, so learning on land and recalling on land, or learning underwater and recalling underwater. This is called an environmental context-dependency effect.
I am guessing you would say this is quite a ‘natural’ study. It was conducted in a natural environment — or at least an environment quite natural to the participants. Therefore, you would probably say that the study is high in ecological validity and could be generalised to other situations.
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