explanations for forgetting Flashcards
What is meant by interference?
One memory disturbs the ability to recall another. This might result in forgetting or distorting one or the other or both. More likely to happen when the memories are similar
What are the two types of interference?
Proactive and Retroactive
What is proactive interference?
Previously learnt information interferes with the new info you are trying to store.
e.g trying to learn names of new psychology class but instead using names of last years students
What is retroactive interference?
A new memory interferes with older ones. For example you have difficulties remembering the names of your psychology students last year because you have learnt the new ones
Who researched into interference?
Underwood and Postman (1960)
What was Underwood and Postman’s aim?
To find out if new learning interferes with previous learning
What was Underwood and Postman’s procedure?
Participants were divided into two groups
Group A were asked to learn a list of word pairs i.e cat-tree then asked to learn a pair of words where only the second was changed e.g cat-glass
Group B were asked to learn the first list of word pairs only
Both groups were then asked to recall the first list of word pairs
What were Underwood and Postman’s results?
Group B’s recall of the first list of words was more accurate than group A
What was Underwood and Postman’s conclusion?
Suggests items in the second list interfered with participants ability to recall the list. This is an example of retroactive interference
Strengths of interference
Research to support from Underwood and Postman
Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to recall opponents they had played, players who had played more had worse recall (interference) - real life application
Limitations of Interference
Research is artificial and mainly completed in lab experiments
Interference does not answer the question of if access or availability is the issue
Effects of interference may be overcome by giving people cues to help them remember
The loss of information may only be temporary so this might not be a true explanation of forgetting
What are the two types of cues?
Meaningfully linked to the info to be remembered
Not meaningfully linked to the info to be remembered
What is meant by context dependent forgetting?
When we learn the information, we also encode the context (external cues) in which we learn the information. Context dependent forgetting can occur when the environment during recall is different from the environment you were in when learning
What is meant by state dependent forgetting?
We also learn the mental state we are in (internal cues). State dependent forgetting occurs when your mood or physiological state during recall is different from your state when we were learning. Should these cues not be present this can cause retrieval failure
Describe Tulving’s ‘Encoding Specificity Principle’
The greater the similarity between the encoding event and the retrieval event, the greater the likelihood of recalling the original memory
Who researched into context - dependent forgetting?
Godden and Baddeley (1975)
What was Godden and Baddeley’s aim?
To investigate the effect of environment on recall
What was Godden and Baddeley’s procedure?
18 divers from a club in Scotland were asked to learn lists of 36 unrelated words of two or three syllables. There were 4 conditions
learn on beach - recall on beach
learn on beach - recall underwater
learn underwater - recall on beach learn underwater- recall underwater
What were Godden and Baddeley’s results?
Following numbers of items were recalled
13.5 learnt and recalled on beach
8.6 learnt on beach and recalled underwater
8.5 learnt underwater recalled on beach
11.4 learnt and recalled underwater
What was Godden and Baddeley’s conclusion?
Results showed context acted as a cue to recall as the participants recalled more words when they learnt and recalled the words in the same environment than in different environments
Strengths of cue dependent forgetting
Research to support from Godden and Baddeley - Divers
Real world application - Abernathy suggests we should revise in room we will take exams
May be links with interference as the cues may stop interference from happening
Limitations of cue dependent forgetting
Context is not normally strong enough in real life
May be differences in performance dependent on the task
No way to clearly establish cue and item were encoded together
