When people are asked to recall a list of words they had earlier memorized, they often replace some of the words on the original list with similar but more familiar words. this best illustrates the impact of?

The answer is: encoding meaning

In psychology, encoding meaning refers to the act breaking down new information that we receive into something that we can easily understand.

In the breaking down process, most people would change the wording of the new information using the language that they are more familiar with in order to make it much more easier to remember.