Explanations for forgetting: Interference Flashcards
What is interference theory?
The theory suggest that forgetting occurs due to two memories competing.
(Finish the sentance) The greater level of similarity between the two memories…
the more likely we are to confuse them.
What are the two types of interferences?
- Proactive interference
- Retroactive interference
What is the definition of proactive interference?
the tendency of previously learned material to hinder subsequent learning.
What is the difintion for retroactive interference?
newly learned information interferes with and impedes the recall of previously learned information.
Give an example for proactive interference
The memory of an old phone number disrupts the attemts to recall a new phone number.
Give an example of retroactive interference
The memory of a new car registration interferes with the recall of a previous car registration.
Who were the first to identify the effects of retroacrtive inteferance?
Georg Muller and his student
What was the method of Georg Mullers study on the effects of retroactive intererence?
They gave participants a list of nonsense syllables for 6 to learn for 6 minutes and then, after a retention interval (they were shown three landscape paintings and asked to describe them), asked participants to recall the list.
What where the results of Georg Mullers study on the effects of retroactive interference?
Performance was less good if the participants had been given an intervening task between initial learning and recall.
What did Benton Underwood study?
proactive interefence
What did Benton Underwood find?
If participants had to memorise 10 or more lists, then they remembered about 20% of what they learnt.
However, if participants had to remember only one list then they could recall over 70% of what they learnt.
What did McGeoch and McDonald study?
the effects of similarity of material
What was the method of McGeoch and Mcdonalds study on the effects of similarity of material?
They gave perticipants a list of 10 adjectives (list A). There was then a resting interval of 10 minutes during which they learnt list B, followed by recall of list A
What were the results of McGeoch and Mcdonalds study on the effects of similarity of material?
If list B was a list of synonyms of list A then recall was poor (12%)
If list B was nonsense syllables then it had less of an effect on recall (26% recall)
If list B consisted of numbers then this had the least affect (37% recall)
What did Baddeley and Hitch investigate?
Interference effects in everyday settings of rugby players
What was the method of Baddeley and Hitch’s investigation on rugby players?
Some of the rugby players had played in all the games, however some had not. The time interval from the start to the end of the season was the same for all the rugby players. All the players were asked about the games they had played
What were the results of Baddeley and Hitch’s investigation on rugby players?
If decay theory is correct then all players should recall a similar percentage of the games because time alone should cause forgetting. However, what was found was that those players who played the most games forgot more because of interference.
What did Danaher et al find?
That both recall and recognition of an advertiser’s message were impaired when participants were exposed to two advertisements for competing brands within a week.
