11 - explanations of forgetting (retrieval failure)

Question 1

what is retrieval failure?

Answer 1

when we forget information because of insufficient cues.

Question 2

when we make memories what are stored which link to those memories?

Answer 2

appropriate cues

Question 3

if cues are not available when making a memory, what is likely to happen when we retrieve it?

Answer 3

likely to seem that the memory has decayed (there but not accessible)

Question 4

what does tulving describe the encoding specificity principle as?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

some cues are linked to material to be remembered in what kind of way?

Answer 5

a meaningful way

Question 6

who carried out the context dependent forgetting study?

Answer 6

godden and baddeley

Question 7

who was the sample in godden and baddeley’s study?

Answer 7

sea divers

Question 8

what was godden and baddeley’s tasks?

Answer 8

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

Question 9

godden and baddeley found that accurate recall was what percent lower in the non matching conditions

Answer 9

40%

Question 10

who tested state dependent forgetting?

Answer 10

carter and cassaday

Question 11

what was carter and cassaday’s task?

Answer 11

gave anti histamine drugs to some participants, which made them slightly drowsy. tested memory of lists of words

Question 12

what was the result of carter and cassaday’s study

Answer 12

recall in state not in before was significantly worse

Question 13

who repeated carter and cassaday’s experiment but with alcohol instead?

Answer 13

overton

Question 14

who investigated category dependent forgetting?

Answer 14

tulving and peakstone

Question 15

tulving and peakstone tested participants memories of how many words?

Answer 15

48 words

Question 16

what were the two conditions in tulving and peakstone’s study?

Answer 16

one group asked to do free recall, another was asked to recall the words in 4 12 word categories

Question 17

what were the results of tulving and peakstones study?

Answer 17

participants performed much better when asked to recall within categories

Question 18

how did aggleton and waskett show that smell can act as a context related cue through a viking museum in york? (strength)

Answer 18

recreated the smells of the museum, found that visitors could recall the details of the trip even years after they had visited

Question 19

how is baddeley questioning context effects a weakness of retrieval failure?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

how is godden and baddeley’s retest of their study a weakness of retrieval failure?

Answer 20

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)