Explanations For Forgetting - Retrieval Failure

Question 1

What is retrieval failure?

Answer 1

When we don’t have the necessary cues to access the memory available

Question 2

What is a cue?

Answer 2

A trigger of information that allows us to access a memory. They can be meaningful or indirectly linked

Question 3

Encoding specificity principle (ESP)

Answer 3

A cue has to be both present at encoding and present at retrieval. With context-dependant forgetting, recall depends on external cue and with state-dependant forgetting recall depends on internal cue

Question 4

Who proposed the ESP?

Answer 4

Tulving (1983)

Question 5

Godden and Baddeley (1975) procedure

Answer 5

Divers learned a list of words underwater or on land and were asked to recall them either underwater or on land

Question 6

Godden and Baddeley (1975) findings

Answer 6

Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions, suggesting external cues available at learning were different at recall led to retrieval failure

Question 7

Carter and Cassaday (1998) procedure

Answer 7

P’s had to learn lists of words either on antihistamines or not, then recall the words either on antihistamines or not

Question 8

Carter and Cassaday (1998) findings

Answer 8

Accurate recall was significantly worse on non-matching conditions, suggesting that when cues are absent there is more forgetting

Question 9

Strengths of retrieval failure

Answer 9

• Reliable results (eg. Many studies, all ranging in setting, all find cues are most effective in matching conditions)
• Real life application (eg. Grant argues students who revise in silence recall best in exam conditions)

Question 10

Limitations of retrieval failure

Answer 10

• Context must be drastically different (eg. Godden & Baddeley used underwater and on land)
• ESP leads to circular reasoning in experiments (eg. Nairne criticised the assumption that the cue was present at encoding)