Explanations for forgetting

Question 1

What are the three explanations for forgetting?

Answer 1

Interference, cue-dependent forgetting and repression

Question 2

What is retrieval failure?

Answer 2

An explanation for forgetting where material is stored in the LTM but cannot be recalled due to a lack of retrieval cues to “jog the memory”

Question 3

What is interference theory?

Answer 3

An explanation for forgetting when similar material is confused with or disrupted by other information during coding, resulting in inaccurate recall from the LTM - Proactive and Retroactive

Question 4

Define proactive interference

Answer 4

Information stored previously interferes with new information (works forwards in time)

Question 5

Define retroactive interference

Answer 5

New information interferes with old information (works backwards in time)

Question 6

What was the procedure used by Schmidt et al. to investigate interference theory?

Answer 6

211 ppts were given a map of Molenberg,
Netherlands with 48 numbers which replaced street
names. Ppts were told to remember as many as they
could. Ppts also completed a questionnaire about how
many times they had moved, and how often they
visited Molenberg. This was to measure their
retroactive interference

Question 7

What results did Schmidt et al. get?

Answer 7

There was a positive correlation between the
no. of times a ppt has moved outside of Molenberg and
the number of street names forgotten

Question 8

Who conducted a real-life study of interference theory?

Answer 8

Baddeley and Hitch

Question 9

What was the procedure used by Baddeley and Hitch to investigate interference theory?

Answer 9

Asked rugby players to recall the names of
teams recently played. For various reasons including
injuries and suspensions most players they
interviewed had missed some games, so for one
player the last game might have been last week,
while for another it was two months ago

Question 10

What results did Baddeley and Hitch gain from their study?

Answer 10

Recall for the last game was
equally good whether that game was played some
time ago or last week. This shows that incorrect
recall was not due to decay (the passage of time) but
was related to the number of intervening games

Question 11

Which explanation has more supporting research?

Answer 11

Cue-dependent forgetting

Question 12

When does cue-dependent forgetting occur?

Answer 12

When information is in LTM but can’t be accessed

Question 13

What metaphor can be used to explain cue-dependent forgetting?

Answer 13

A filing cabinet where the labels on files are retrieval cues

Question 14

What is cue-dependent forgetting?

Answer 14

A type of forgetting based on a failure to retrieve the prompts that trigger recall - when we learn the information we also encode the context (external cues) in which we learn the information and the mental state we are in (internal cues). These can act as cues to recall.

Question 15

What are the two main forms of cue-dependent forgetting?

Answer 15

State-dependent and context-dependent

Question 16

Explain context-dependent forgetting

Answer 16

Forgetting occurs when the external environment is different at recall than it was at coding

Question 17

What are the two types of cues in the cue-dependent forgetting explanation?

Answer 17

Cues which are linked meaningfully to the information to be remembered and cues that are not

Question 18

Explain state-dependent forgetting

Answer 18

Forgetting occurs when an individual’s internal environment is different at recall to coding

Question 19

What was Godden and Baddeley’s procedure and results?

Answer 19

18 divers from a diving club were asked to learn lists of 36 unrelated words of two or three syllables in one of four conditions (involving beach and underwater) and found that those who learnt underwater but recalled on the beach had an 8.5% recall compared to the recall of those who both recalled and learnt underwater at 11.4%

Question 20

What was Overton’s procedure and results?

Answer 20

Participants had to learn material when either

drunk or sober; Recall was poorer when participants were in a different state at recall to coding

Question 21

What alternative theories of forgetting are there?

Answer 21

Trace decay (a gradual fading of memory) and displacement theory (information is lost from STM as it has a limited capacity

Question 22

What is repression?

Answer 22

A type of motivated forgetting where emotionally threatening events are banished into the unconscious mind to prevent feelings of anxiety, although the memory continues to affect conscious thoughts and actions, they are difficult to retrieve

Question 23

What is false memory syndrome?

Answer 23

A repressed memory recalled in repressed memory therapy turns out to be false, potentially because therapists plant false memories (Loftus and Palmer)

Question 24

What did Williams find?

Answer 24

38% of the women he studied had no recall of their childhood sexual assault, and of those who could recall it 16% reported that at one time they couldn’t recall it

Question 25

What is an organised cue?

Answer 25

A type of contextual cue which uses acronyms, mindmaps etc.