Explanations for forgetting - Inference Flashcards
What is Retroactive Interference?
Occurs when a newer memory interferes with an older memory
What is Proactive Interference?
Occurs when an older memory interferes with a newer memory.
What is interference? Link to the LTM?
Interference is when we forget becuase one memory blocks another, causing one or both memories to be distorted or forgotten. Interference has been proposed mainly as an explaination for forgetting in LTM.
Give one reason why similarity affects recall (Retroactive interference)
New information overwrites previous similar memories because of the similarity.
Give one reason why similarity affects recall (Proactive interference)
Previously stored information makes new similar information more difficult to store.
What are the evaluations of interference?
Evidence of interference effects in everyday life, (COUNTERPOINT) Intereference may cause some forgetting in everyday life but it is unusal, interference is temporary and can be overcome by using cues.
Evaluation: There is evdience of interference effects in more everyday situtations.
One strength is that there is evidence of interference effects in more everyday situations. Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to recall the names of the teams 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 players missed matches due to injury. Players whoplayed the most games (most interference for memory) had the poorest recall. This study shows that interference can operate in at least some real-world situations, increasing the validity of the thoery.
Evaluation: (counterpoint) Interference may cause some forgetting in everyday situations but it is unusual.
Interference may cause some forgetting in everyday situations but it is unusual. This is because the conditions neccessary for interference to occur are rare. This is unlike lab studies where the high degree of control means a researcher can create ideal conditions for interference. For instance, two memories have to be fairly similar to interfere with each other. This may happen in everylife (e.g. if you were to revise similar subjects) but not often. This sugguests that most forgetting may be better explained by other theories such as retrieval failure due to a lack of cues.
Evaluation: Interference is temporary and be overcome by using cues
One limitation is that interference is temporary and be overcome by using cues. Tulving and Psotka gave ppts a list of words organised into categories, one list at a time (ppts were not told what the categories were). Recall averages about 70% for the first list, but became worse as ppts learned an additional list (PI). But had the words really disappeared from the LTM or were they still available? At the end of the procedure the ppts were given a cued recall test - they were told the name of the categories. Recall rose again to about 70%. This shows that interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility to material taht is still in LTM, a finding not predicted by interfernce theory.
Describe the study done by McGeoch and McDonald on their research on effects of similarity
In both PI and RI, the interference is worse when the memories are similar.
Procedure: They studied RI by changing the amount of similarity between two sets of materials
PPts had to learn a list of words till they could recall them 100% accurately.
They then learned a new list - there were 6 groups who each had a seperate list:
Group 1: synonyms
Group 2: antonyms
Group 3: words unrelated to the original ones
Group 4: consonant syllables
Group 5: three digit numbers
Group 6: no new list - just rested (control)
Describe the conclusion of the study
When ppts were asked to recall the original list of words, the group who had synonyms produced the worst recall.
This shows that interference is strongest when memories are similar.
