Explanations For Forgetting: Interference - Evaluation Flashcards
What evidence supports the validity of interference in everyday life?
Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to recall names of teams played in a season
found players who played the most games had the worst recall showing interference can operate in real world situations increasing validity
What evidence supports retroactive interference?
Coenen and van Luijtelaar made participants learn a list of words under the influence of diazepam, resulting in poor recall a week later compared with placebo
List learned before the drug taken, recall a week later better than placebo - drug improved recall
What did Wixted add onto the evidence of retroactive interference study?
The drug prevents new information from being stored.
What limitations exist regarding interference as a cause of forgetting?
- Interference is unusual.
- Conducted in a lab creating an ideal situation for interference
- Conditions for interference rare in real life.
- 2 memories have to be fairly similar for it to occur
Suggests forgetting may be due to other theories like retrieval failure (lack of cues)
What evidence casts doubt on interference?
As a limitation of interference
Tulving and Psotka gave participants lists of words organized in categories, one list at a time without telling the participants the categories.
Shows interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility to items in the LTM
- Not predicted by interference theory
What was the finding of Tulving and Psotka (1971) regarding interference?
Recall averaged 70% for the first list but decreased with additional lists
When given a cued recall test and told the names of categories, recall rose again to 70%
