Explanations for forgetting: Retrieval failure Flashcards
What is retrieval failure?
Occurs due to the absence of cues
What is a cue?
things that serve as a reminder.
What is forgetting in LTM mainly due to?
Retrieval failure ( lack of accessibility rather than availability)
What did Tulving and Thomson (1973) propose?
Memory is most effective if information that was present
at encoding is also available at the time of retrieval
What does the encoding specificity principle further state?
A cue doesn’t have to be exactly right but closer the cue is to the original item, the more useful it will be
What did Tulving and Pearlstone (1966) demonstate?
The value of retrieval cues in a study
What study did Tulving and Pearlstone carry out?
Participants had to learn 48 words belonging to 12 categories
How was each word presented in the Tulving and Pearlstone study?
A category + word
fruit- apple, fruit-orange
What where the two recall conditions?
- Free recall ( recall as many words as they could)
- Or given some cues in form if the category names
What happened in the free recall condition?
40% of words were recalled on average
What happened in the cued recall condition?
60% of words recalled on average
What is the Tulving and Pearlstone study giving evidence for?
Cues that have been explicitly or implicity encoded at the time of learning and have a meaningful link to the learning material
What is one example of context-dependent forgetting?
Ethel Abernethy (1940) study
What did Abernethy arrange?
A group of students to be tested before a certain course began
When where the students tested?
Each week
What was one condition in which the participant was tested?
In their teaching room by their usual instructor
Others tested by a different instructor in their usual room
Another condition in which participants where tested?
In a different room with either the SAME instructor or a DIFFERENT one
Which condition performed best?
The students with the same instructor in the same room
Why did the condition have the best results?
- Familiar things, acted as memory cues
What else did Abernethy find about the students in different conditions?
- Superior students least affected
- Inferior most affected
What did Godden and Baddeley’s experiment investigate?
The effects of contextual cues
Who did Godden and Baddeley use in their experiment?
Scuba divers
what did the participants have to do in Godden and Baddeley’s experiment?
Learn a set of words either on land or underwater
How where the participants then tested in Godden and Baddelely’s experiment?
Either on land or underwater depending on how they learnt the word
What did the results of Godden and Baddeley’s experiemnt show?
The highest recall occured in the initial context matched the recall environment
( learning on land and recalling on land)
What did Goodwin et al. ( 1969) involve his experiment around?
Mental state you are in at the time of learnng can also act as a cue
What did Goodwin et al. ( 1969) use as participants in the study?
Male volunteers
What did the participants have to do?
Remember a list of words when they were either drunk or sober
How much did the participants in the drunk condition drink?
Three times the UK drink driving limit
How long until the participants were asked to recall the list they learnt?
24hrs
some were sober but others had to get drunk again
What was concluded from Goodwin et al. (1969) experiment?
Information learnt drunk is more available when in the same state later
There is a lot of research support.
Plenty of research evidence which has documented the importance of retrieval cues on memory is a real strength of this explanation of forgetting
- Research involves: lab, field and natural experiments
- Tulving & Pearlstone, a lab experiment
- Abernethy, field experiment
Most evidence has relevance to everyday memory experiences, the evidence has high ecological validity
Real-world application
Use to improve recall when you need to, for example when you are taking exams
- Abernethy’s research suggests that you ought to revise in the room where you will be taking the exams
- Smith ( 1979) showed that just thinking of the room in which you did the original learning was effective
- Cues in cognitive interview
Showing how research into retrieval can suggest strategies for improving recall in real-world situations, such as taking exams or giving eye witness testimony
The danger of circularity
The relationship between encoding cues and later retrieval is a correlation rather than a cause
- Nairne ( 2002) myth of the encoding-retrieval match
- Baddeley (1997) encoding specificity principle is impossible to test because it is circular
- If a stimulus leads to the retrieval of a memory then it must have been encoded in memory
- It is impossible to test if an item has been encoded in memory
According to this criticism, therefore, the cues do not cause retrieval, they are just associated with retrieval
