explanations for forgetting Flashcards
what is the interference theory?
some forgetting takes place because of interference, this occurs when two pieces of information conflict with each other, resulting in forgetting or distortion of memory.
what are the two types of interference?
proactive
retroactive
what is proactive interference?
occurs when old information interferes with the learning of new information. this usually occurs when the information is similar.
e.g. a phone number
what is retroactive interference?
occurs when the learning of new information interferes with the recall of old information. also usually occurs when the information is similar
interference theory - research support
Mcgeogh and Mcdonald found that when participants recalled the original list of words, their performance depended on the nature of the second list. the most similar material produced the worst recall. this shows that interference is strongest when memories are similar.
what did Mcgeogh and Mcdonalds investiagte?
studied retroactive interference by changing the amount of similarity between two sets of materials. participants had to learn a list of ten words until they could remember them accurately, they then learned a new list. 6 groups
- synonyms/antonyms
- words unrelated
- nonsence syllables
- three-digit nubers
- no new list
most similar material produced the worst recall
what is a cue?
a ‘trigger’ of information that allows us to access a memory. such cues may be meaningful or may be indirectly linked by being encoded at the time of learning.
what is retrieval failure due to the absence of cues?
tulving and thomson proposed the encoding specificity principle, which states that a cue has to present at encoding and at retrieval, if the cues are different or are entirely absent then forgetting takes place. cues can be used mnemonic techniques
what is context dependent forgetting?
when environmental cues are missing
what is state dependent forgetting?
when an individuals emotional state is different when trying to recall the information
strength of retrieval failure
N - a number of studies provide support for the explanation
A - for example, Godden and Baddeley found that in two of the conditions the environmental contexts matched, whereas in the other two they didn’t. Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions. the external cues available at the time of learning were different from those at recall and so retrieval failure occurred. furthermore, Carter and Cassaday found that when there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse. So, when cues are absent forgetting takes place
E - these studies provide support for the explanation, supporting evidence increases the validity of the explanation and supports retrieval failure in real life as well as a controlled lab setting
limitation of retrieval failure (Bad)
N - however, Baddeley argues that context effects are usually not very strong, especially in real life
A - different contexts would have to be very different indeed before an effect is seen. it would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater. in contrast, learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting as they are generally not different enough.
E - this is a limitation as it suggests that real-life explanations of forgetting due to absence of contextual cues doesn’t explain much forgetting
limitation of retrieval failure
N - however, the context effect may be related to the kind of memory being tested
A - Godden & Baddeley replicated their underwater experiment using a recognition test instead of recall. participants were asked whether they recognised a word read out to them from the list, instead of retrieving it for themselves. there was no context-dependent effect; performance was the same in all four conditions
E - this is a further limitation because it means the presence/absence of cues only effects memory when tested in a certain way.
