Explanation of forgetting Flashcards
The 2 explanation of forgetting
- Interference
- absense of cues
2 types of interference
- proactive
- retroactive
what is proactive
when older information interferes with your ability to remember something new
e.g:- when you try to remember your password, but you keep thinking of your old password.
what is retroactive
newer information gets distrubuted by older information
e.g:- trying to remember your address form 10 years ago, but you keeping thinking of your address from 2 years ago.
A03 :
limitation of interference
limited explanatory power:
- interference only explain when 2 types of interferes are similar, but does not explain when the situations are different
lacks ecological and external validity:
- psychological research on forgetting on interference is often based on experiments in artificial lab and so findings might not transfer to real life situation
one limitation is that interference is temporary and can be overcome by using cues. Tulving et al gave participants lists of words organized into categories, one list at a time. Recall averaged about 70% for the time, but became progressively worse as participants learned each additional list (proactive interference). But had the words really disappear from LTM or were they still available. At the end of the procedure the participants were given cued recall test- they told the names of the categories. Recall rose again to about 70%. This shows that interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility to material that is still in LTM, a finding not predicted by interference theory.
what is the definition of absense of cues
when information is stored in LTM but can not be accessed because there is no memory to trigger the memory.
Strength of Interference
one strength is that there is evidence of interference affects in more everyday situations. Alan Braddley and Hitch (1977) asked rugby players to to recall the names of the team they had played against during a rugby season. The players all played for the same time interval but the number of intervening games varied because some layers missed matches due to injury. Players who played the most games had the poorest recall. This study shows that interference can operate in at least some real-world situations and increasing the validity of the theory.
Another strength comes from evidence of retrograde facilitation. Psychologists gave participants a list of words and later asked them to recall the list, assuming the intervening experience would act as a interference. They found that when a list of words was learned under the influence of the drug diazepam, recall one week later was so poor compared to a placebo group. But when a list learned before the drug was taken, later recall was better than the placebo, So the drug actually improved recall of material learned beforehand. Wixted suggest that the drugs prevents new info reaching parts of the brain involved in processing memories, so it cannot interference - reduce the interference and you reduce the forgetting the drug was taken.
what did tulving and thomas suggest
(absense of cues)
suggest when forgetting is more likely to occur when the context in which memory is recalled is different from the context in memory which was coded
2 types of absence of cues
- context dependant forgetting
- state dependant forgetting
what is the context dependant forgetting
when external information does not provide the cues necessary to recall a memory
what is the state dependant forgetting
when the internal enviroment during recall is different from the internal enviroment when the memory is coded
A03 of retrieval failure
strength
Darley et al (1973) observed that participants who forgot where they hid money while high on cannabis were more likely to remember where they hid that money once they got high again compared to when they were sober.
Similarly, there are studies supporting the existence of context-dependent failure (i.e. forgetting when the external environment is different). For example, Godden and Baddeley (1975) got divers to learn lists of words on both dry land and underwater. They found the divers’ recall was much better in the environment it was learned (i.e. the words learned underwater were recalled better underwater and vice versa).
Another strength is the impressive range of research that supports the retrieval failure explanation. The studies by Godden and Baddley and Carter and Cassaday (facing page) are just 2 examples because they show that a lack of relevant cues at recall can lead to Context and state dependant forgetting in everyday life. Memory researcher Micheal Eyesrisck and Mark Keane argue that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM. This evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real world situation as well as in highly controlled conditions of the lab.
A03 of retrieval failure
limitation
lacks ecological and external validity:
- psychological research on forgetting on absense of cues is often based on experiments in artificial lab and so findings might not transfer to real life situation
