Explanations for Forgetting (Memory)

Question 1

Memory Decay

Answer 1

-memory traces decay over time
-during any delay a memory is subject to the effects of time and interference from other memories
-memories seem to be forgotten because we no longer have the appropriate reminders
-you are more likely to forget something that you did not pay attention to when it originally happened
-are more likely to forget or get mixed up with similar pieces of material

Question 2

Interference

Answer 2

One memory blocks another. This might result in forgetting one or the other or both.

Question 3

Proactive interference

Answer 3

Forgetting occurs when older memories disrupt the recall of newer memories.

Question 4

Retroactive Interference

Answer 4

Forgetting occurs when newer memories disrupt the recall of older memories already stored.

Question 5

Method (Tulving and Psotka 1971 Forgetting in LTM)

Answer 5

Compared the theories of interference and cue-dependent forgetting.

Participants given either 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 lists of 24 words. Each list was divided into 6 categories of 4 words which were presented in category order.

FIRST CONDITION: participants had to recall all of the words in total free recall.

SECOND CONDITION: participants given all the category names and had to recall words from the list in free cued recall.

Question 6

Results (Tulving and Psotka 1971 Forgetting in LTM)

Answer 6

In total free recall condition, evidence of retroactive interference. Those with 1 or 2 lists had higher recall than those with more, suggesting that later lists interfered with the earlier lists.

In cued recall, the effects of retroactive interference disappeared. No matter how many lists, participants recalled about 70% of the words

Question 7

Conclusion (Tulving and Psotka 1971 Forgetting in LTM)

Answer 7

Suggests that interference had not caused forgetting because memories became available when a cue was used, showing that they were available, but inaccessible.

Forgetting shown in the total free recall was cue dependent forgetting.

Question 8

Evaluation (Tulving and Psotka 1971 Forgetting in LTM)

Answer 8

Lab experiment, low ecological validity.

Only tested memory of words, so results cannot be generalised to information of other types.

Highly controlled, lack of extraneous variables.

Question 9

Underwood and Postman 1960

Answer 9

Aimed to find out if new learning interferes with previous learning.

Group A: had to learn a list of paired words and were then asked to learn a second list of paired words.

Group B: only had to learn the first list of words.

Group B recalled the first list more accurately.

Suggests that learning items in the second list interfered with participants ability to recall the first. This is retroactive interference.

Question 10

(Evaluations of interference) Research for similar material

Answer 10

Research shows that if material is similar then interference is likely to occur.

Mc Geoch and McDonald:
-participants had to learn a list of ten words until they could be remembered with 100% accuracy.
-Groups with most similar words had the worst recall, suggesting that interference is strongest when material is similar.

Question 11

(Evaluations of interference) Application to advertising

Answer 11

Danahar et al 2008

Both recall and recognition of an advertiser’s message were impaired when participants were exposed to two advertisements for competing brand within a week.

Question 12

(Evaluations of interference) Individual Differences

Answer 12

Kane and Eagle

Individuals with a greater working memory span were less susceptible to proactive interference.
-Participants were given three word lists to learn. Those with low working memory span showed greater proactive interference when recalling the second and third than those with higher spans.

Individual differences suggest that proactive interference is not a complete explanation for forgetting.

Question 13

(Evaluations of interference) Accessibility versus Availability

Answer 13

Ceraso 1967

If memory was tested again after 24 hours, recognition (accessibility) showed spontaneous recovery while recall (availability) remained the same.

Suggests that interference occurs because memories are temporarily inaccessible rather than having been lost (unavailable).

Question 14

(Retrieval failure) Tulving 1983

Answer 14

When we encode a new memory we also store info that occurred around it (cues). If we can’t recall it then the situation is not similar to that in which the memory originally occurred.

If the cues are not present when we come to recall then we find it difficult to retrieve the memory. It is not necessarily because we have forgotten it, it’s that we don’t have the cues to help us to access the memory. It is available, but there is a problem with accessing the memory.

Question 15

Encoding Specifically Principle (Tulving)

Answer 15

“the greater the similarity between the encoding event and the retrieval event, the greater the likelihood of recalling the original memory”

Question 16

Types of cue dependent forgetting

Answer 16

-context: External environmental cues
-state: Internal cues

Question 17

Meaningful links

Answer 17

Some cues are linked to material in a meaningful way- a meaningful link or connection can help you remember it.

E.G. Mnemonics: tools to help remember facts o a large amount of information. It can be a song, rhyme, acronym etc as long as it helps to remember facts in a certain order.

Question 18

Godden and Baddeley 1975 Aim and Method

Answer 18

Aimed to see if people who learn and are tested in the same environment will recall more than those who learn and are tested in different environments. (Cue dependent)

Ps were deep sea divers who were divided into groups and given the same list of words to learn.
G1: learnt underwater and recalled underwater
G2: learnt underwater and recalled on shore
G3: learnt on shore and recalled on shore
G4: learnt on shore and recalled underwater

Question 19

Godden and Baddeley 1975 Results and Conclusion

Answer 19

The groups that learnt and recalled in the same environments recalled 40% more words than the other groups.

Recall of information will be better if it happens in the same context that learning takes place in

Question 20

Goodwin et al 1969 Aim and Method

Answer 20

Aimed to investigate state dependent forgetting .

Forty-eight male medical students participate on day 1 in a training session and on day 2 in testing. They were randomly assigned to four groups:
(S=sober, A=intoxicated)

G1: SS
G2: AA
G3: AS
G4: SA

The intoxicated groups had 111mg-100ml alcohol in their blood, showing signs of intoxication.
Were given an avoidance task, a verbal rote-learning, a word-association task and a picture recognition task.

Question 21

Goodwin et al 1969 Results and Conclusion

Answer 21

More errors were made on day 2 in the AS and SA condition than in the AA or SS conditions, although this was not the case for the picture recognition test. The SS Ps performed best in all tasks.

Supports the state-dependent memory theory as the performance was best in the participants who were sober or intoxicated on both days.

Question 22

Carter and Cassaday 1998 Aim and Method

Answer 22

Aimed to investigate state dependent forgetting .

Gave anti-histamine drugs to their participants. The anti-histamine has a mild sedative effect, creating an internal physiological state different from the normal state of being awake and alert. The participants had to learn a list of words and passages of prose and then recall

G1 learn on it, recall on it
G2 learn on it, recall not on it
G3 learn not on it, recall on it
G4 learn not on it, recall not on it

Question 23

Carter and Cassaday 1998 Results and Conlusion

Answer 23

in the condition where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance was worse, G1 and G4 performed best.

Supports state dependent emory theory as when cues were absent there was more forgetting

Question 24

Tulving and Pearlstone 1966 aim and method

Answer 24

Tested availability versus accessibility on information in memory for words.

Participants learned on a single trial lists of words belonging to explicitly designate conceptual categories. Lists varied in terms of length and number of words per category.

Immediate recall was then tested in either presence or absence of category names as cues.

Question 25

Tulving and Pearlstone 1966 Results and Conclusion

Answer 25

Cued recall was higher than non-cued recall the difference varying directly with list length and inversely with number of items per category.

Showed sufficiently intact memory traces of words not recalled under the non-cued recall conditions were available in the memory storage, but not accessible for retrieval.

suggested two independent retrieval processes, 1 concerned with the accessibility of higher order memory units and the other with accessibility of items within higher-order units

Question 26

Aggleton and Waskett 1999 Aim and Method

Answer 26

aimed to show the extent to which the re-exposure of odours from a museum would aid the recall of a previous visit several years earlier.

group completed a questionnaire about the contents of the museum. They were either given a different set of odours or no odours, or the exact odours of the museum.

After this, all groups were given the same questions again. those with the museum odours were tested without them, those with novel odours with the museum’s and those with none still with non

Question 27

Aggleton and Waskett 1999 Results and Conclusion

Answer 27

Only the novel odour-Museum odour condition led to a highly significant improvement in performance. This showed that the museum odours could act as effective retrieval cues for this incidentally acquired real-world episode.