11 - explanations of forgetting (retrieval failure) Flashcards
what is retrieval failure?
when we forget information because of insufficient cues.
when we make memories what are stored which link to those memories?
appropriate cues
if cues are not available when making a memory, what is likely to happen when we retrieve it?
likely to seem that the memory has decayed (there but not accessible)
what does tulving describe the encoding specificity principle as?
tulving argued that if the cue is going to help us retrieve information it must be present at the time the memory was made (encoding) and the time it is being received. if this does not happen then forgetting will take place
some cues are linked to material to be remembered in what kind of way?
a meaningful way
who carried out the context dependent forgetting study?
godden and baddeley
who was the sample in godden and baddeley’s study?
sea divers
what was godden and baddeley’s tasks?
sea divers had to learn a list of words either under water or on land, they then tested their recall on both land and under water
godden and baddeley found that accurate recall was what percent lower in the non matching conditions
40%
who tested state dependent forgetting?
carter and cassaday
what was carter and cassaday’s task?
gave anti histamine drugs to some participants, which made them slightly drowsy. tested memory of lists of words
what was the result of carter and cassaday’s study
recall in state not in before was significantly worse
who repeated carter and cassaday’s experiment but with alcohol instead?
overton
who investigated category dependent forgetting?
tulving and peakstone
tulving and peakstone tested participants memories of how many words?
48 words
what were the two conditions in tulving and peakstone’s study?
one group asked to do free recall, another was asked to recall the words in 4 12 word categories
what were the results of tulving and peakstones study?
participants performed much better when asked to recall within categories
how did aggleton and waskett show that smell can act as a context related cue through a viking museum in york? (strength)
recreated the smells of the museum, found that visitors could recall the details of the trip even years after they had visited
how is baddeley questioning context effects a weakness of retrieval failure?
baddeley questions if the context effects are strong enough to make a link. he argues that the contexts have to be extremely different for it to work, so underwater and land has a clear effect over just changing rooms. this limits it’s reliability and application
how is godden and baddeley’s retest of their study a weakness of retrieval failure?
this time they asked the divers if they recognised the words rather than asking them to recall them. when this was tested there was no context dependent effect, performance was the same in all four conditions. limitation because the presence of cues only works when tested in a certain way (recall vs recognition)
