Explanations for forgetting: Interference Flashcards
What is interference?
An explanation of forgetting in terms of one memory disrupting the ability to recall another. This is most likely to occur when the two memories have some similarity.
What is proactive interference?
Past learning interferes with current attempts to learn something.
What is retroactive interference?
Current attempts to learn something interfere with past learning.
What is the key study in retroactive interference?
Muller and Pilzecker demonstrativ retroactive interference by giving participants lists of nonsense syllables to learn for 6 minutes and then after a retention interval, asking them to recall the list. Performance was worse when interviewing task was given between initial learning and recall (shown landscape paintings and asked to describe them).
What is the key study in proactive interference?
Underwood analysed the findings from a number of studies and found participants were less able to learn a list of words later in a sequence in comparison to those earlier on. After 24 hours if they learnt 10 or more lists, they only remembered 20% whereas if they only learned the one list the recall was over 70%.
What is similarity of test materials?
McGeoch and McDonald experimented with effects of similarity of materials. list A of 10 adjectives in the interval they learned a second list B. List B was synonyms of list A recall was only 12%. If nonsense it was 26%. If was not related then recall was 37%.
What is the real world study presented by Baddeley and Hitch?
Investigating interference effects in everyday rugby teams. If decay theory is correct then all players should recall a similar percentage of games played because time should cause forgetting. If interference theory is correct then those who played the most games would forget more. This is what they found demonstrating the effect of interference in everyday life.
What is a strength of interference as an explanation of forgetting?
One strength of interference research is the application to advertising. Danaher et al. found that both recall and recognition of an advertisers message were impaired when participants were exposed to two adverts from competing brands in the same week. This demonstrates the effects of interference when people are exposed to competing adverts. This matters because research can potentially save advertisers money and enhance the effectiveness of their campaign.
What is a limitation of interference as an explanation of forgetting?
A criticism of interference research is the evidence of individual differences. Kane and Engle demonstrated that individuals with greater working memory spans were less susceptible to proactive interference. The researchers tested this by giving participants 3 lists to learn. Those with low working memory spans showed greater proactive than those with higher working memory spans. This suggests that interference does not affect everyone equally and individual differences mat play an important role in forgetting.
What is a limitation of interference as an explanation of forgetting?
Another criticism is that interference only explains some types of forgetting. Critics argue that while interference effects do occur in everyday life, they fo not occur very often. For example, rather special conditions are required for interference to lead to forgetting.- the two memories need to be quite similar. This suggest that interference is a relatively unimportant explanation of forgetting and other theories are required to provide a complete explanation.
