Immersive virtual reality (VR) offers important benefits over
non-immersive displays, such as increased ecological validity
and high experimental control. Studies in cognitive science
using immersive VR are however still rather limited in
number. The current paper illustrates the opportunities to
apply VR in the cognitive sciences by using an immersive
adaptation of a classic study by Godden and Baddeley (1975)
on environmental context-dependent memory (ECDM). In
this memory study, retrieval was facilitated when the context
between learning and testing matched. In line with the
literature showing small effects for context-dependent recall,
the current study indicated a marginally significant ECDM
effect for one virtual context, but when deep processing was
controlled, a significant ECDM effect was obtained. In
demonstrating the applicability and benefits of immersive VR,
this study at last opens a doorway to the large-scale
implementation of immersive VR for the cognitive sciences.