Explanations for forgetting :Interference

Question 1

Proactive Interference

Answer 1

Proactive interference occurs when an older memory interferes with a newer one. For example, a teacher has learned so many students names in the past that she has difficulty remembering the names of her current class and mixes up the name of an old student with a new one

Question 2

Retroactive Interference

Answer 2

Retroactive interference occurs when a newer memory interferes with an older one. For example a teacher has learned so many new names this year that she has difficulty remembering the names of the students last year and she mixes up a new students name with an older one.

Question 3

Mcgeoch et al procedure

Answer 3

• McGeoch et al studied retroactive interference by changing the amount of similarity between two sets of materials and participants had to learn a list of 10 words until they had 100% accuracy and then learned a new list. There were 6 groups of participants who learned different types of lists: group one learned synonyms, group two learned antonyms, group three learned words unrelated to the original ones, group four learned consonant syllables, group five learned three-digit numbers and group 6 learned no new lists

Question 4

Mcgeoch et al findings

Answer 4

McGeoch et al found the most similar material, group 1, produced the worst recall. This shows that interference is strongest when the memories are similar.

Question 5

Baddeley and Hitch procedure

Answer 5

Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to try to remember the names of the teams they has played so far in that season and some players had missed games with some players playing rugby two weeks prior

Question 6

Baddeley and Hitch findings

Answer 6

They found that accurate recall did not depend on how long ago the matches took place, but instead how many games they had played in the meantime as recall was strongest if they had played no matched between them

Question 7

A strength of Interference as an explanation for forgetting

Answer 7

• A strength of interference as an explanation for forgetting is the research supporting the concept of interference.
• Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to try to remember the names of the teams they has played so far in that season and some players had missed games with some players playing rugby two weeks prior.
• They found that accurate recall did not depend on how long ago the matches took place, but instead how many games they had played in the meantime as recall was strongest if they had played no matched between them.
• This is a strength as it has high ecological validity as it took place in everyday situations and thus gives the psychologist confidence that interference in a valid explanation for forgetting and can be generalised.

Question 8

A weakness of Interference as an explanation for forgetting

Answer 8

• a weakness of interference as an explanation for forgetting is that much of the research supporting this concept comes from laboratory experiments resulting in low ecological validity.
• For instance, in McGeoch’s conducted an experiment in which participants were asked to learn 2 lists of words each with different types of words such as synonyms, antonyms and consonant syllables.
• This is an issue as it lacks mundane realism as in real-life we are not really expected do artificial tasks such as to learn lists of words in an artificial environment and this can result in participants displaying artificial behaviour.
• This is problematic as it means any results from lab
  experiments cannot be generalised to real-life forgetting which weakens those experiments as support for interference theory