Explanations for forgetting - Retrieval Failure Flashcards
What does retrieval failure suggest?
That forgetting occurs when the cues present at the time of encoding the information aren’t. present at the time of recall
What did Tulving discover?
The Encoding Specificity Principle
What does the ESP suggest
Cues associated with internal or external factors
What are the 2 types of forgetting
Context-dependent and State - dependent
When does context-dependent forgetting occur
When our external cues at the time of encoding. doesn’t match those present at recall
What did Godden and Baddeley do?
In 1975 they found that with deep sea divers, recall at matching conditions (recalled and learnt underwater) was significantly larger than the non-matching conditions
When does state - dependent forgetting occur?
Our internal cues at the time encoding don’t match those present at recall
What did Carter and Cassidy do?
Similar to Godden and Baddeley but with antihistamines instead to change the internal cues at the time of encoding and recall. They found 40% higher rates of accurate recall in the matching conditions compared to the non-matching
Give a + (LE)
Eysenck suggested that retrieval failure is 1 of the main reasons why we forget from the LTM. This and strict lab experiments increases the validity of retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting our to the confidence being placed in these conclusions on the basis of the experiments
Give a - (LEV)
The studies may lack ecological validity. This is because Baddeley argued it’s difficult to find such polar conditions in real life, therefore questioned the ecitance of context effects in normal life. suggesting retrieval failure may be best suited to explaining cases of forgetting where the cues associated with encoding and retrieval are uncommonly distinct, therefore not providing an accurate deception of forgetting in day-to-day life
Give a - (MN+NM)
Godden and Baddeley repeated their underwater experiment but tested for recognition of learnt words as opposed to recall and found no difference in accuracy in. the matched and non matched conditions. This suggests that retrieval failure may only explain forgetting and some types of memories, tested in specific ways and under specific conditions. This suggests that the findings from studies of retrieval failure suffers from generalisability
Give a - (ESPCR)
ESP suffers from clinical reasoning due to its over-reliance on assumptions. For example, it may not always be the case that differences between cues at. the time of encoding and recall causes retrieval failure, but the clinical nature of ESP suggests so
