4.1.2 Retrieval failure

Question 1

Insufficient cues - experimenter

Answer 1

ENDAL TULVING
1983

Question 2

Insufficient cues - study

Answer 2

The reason we forget is because of insufficient cues
Endal Tulving (1983) reviewed research into retrieval failure and discovered a consistent pattern to the findings.
He called his pattern the encoding specificity principle (ESP).
This states that if a cue is going to be helpful it has to be both:
Present at encoding (when we learn the material)
Present at retrieval (when we are recalling it)
If the cues available at encoding and retrieval are different then there will be some forgetting.
Some cues are encoded at the time of learning in a meaningful way.
e.g. by saying STM you are then able to recall lots of different information about short term memory.
These cues are used in mnemonics – tools used to help remember facts or a large amount of information.
It can be a song, rhyme, acronym, image or a phrase to help remember a list of facts in a certain older.

Question 3

Research on context-dependent forgetting - experimenter

Answer 3

GODDEN AND BADDELEY
1975

Question 4

Research on context-dependent forgetting - conditions

Answer 4

GODDEN AND BADDELEY
Learn on beach - recall on beach
Learn on beach - recall underwater
Learn underwater - recall underwater
Learn underwater - recall on beach

Question 5

Research on context-dependent forgetting - findings and conclusion

Answer 5

GODDEN AND BADDELEY
In two of the conditions, the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched, whereas the other two did not.
Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions.
Conclusion: the external cues available at learning were different from the ones available at recall and this led to retrieval failure.

Question 6

Research on state-dependent forgetting - experimenter

Answer 6

CARTER AND CASSADAY
1998

Question 7

Research on state-dependent forgetting - procedure

Answer 7

CARTER AND CASSADAY
Gave antihistamine drugs (for hayfever) to their participants. They had a mild sedative effect making the participants slightly drowsy. This creates an internal psychological state different from the ‘normal’ state of being awake and alert.
The participants had a list of words and passages to remember and then recall again. There were four conditions:
Learn on drug – recall when on drug
Learn on drug – recall when not on drug
Learn not on drug – recall when on drug
Learn not on drug – recall when not on drug

Question 8

Research on state-dependent forgetting - findings

Answer 8

Carter and Cassaday
In the condition where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance was significantly worse. So when cues are absent, e.g. drowsy, when recalling information you were alert at learning, then there is more forgetting

Question 9

Evaluation - real world application

Answer 9

Retrieval cues can help some forgetting in everyday situations
Although cues don’t have a very strong effect on forgetting, Baddeley suggests they are still worth paying attention too
Forgetting what you went into a room for – always helpful to go back to the environment where the memory was made, if possible

Question 10

Evaluation - research support

Answer 10

There is lots of research to support the retrieval failure explanation
EYSENCK AND KEANE (2010) argue that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM