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
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.
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 absense 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 State Dependant forgetting
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.
limitation of absense of Cues
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
A03 of context Dependant forgetting
strength
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).
