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Did you actually listen under the same circumstances you would have read? For example, you wouldn't visually read a book while folding clothes. I suspect some of the lower recall with audiobooks is because people listen to them in situations where they wouldn't be able to read a physical book at all.

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I do admit that around half of the circumstances where I was listening to audiobooks I was multitasking or in a situation or environment where a physical book would be more difficult, but some situations were focused listening as well and strong narrative content usually persisted better in memory.

Most frequent contexts were: - Cooking - Working out - Airplane - Subway Rides (If the train is too crowded to read I'll switch to listening to an audiobook) - Walking Places - Focused listening before bed

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