Explanations for Forgetting - Retrieval failure

Question 1

Retrieval Failure: Cue-Dependent Forgetting

Answer 1

This occurs when information is stored in the long-term memory, but cannot be accessed.
It sees recall as being dependent upon retrieval cues, therefore forgetting will occur in the absence of these cues

Question 2

Retrieval cues are things that serve as a reminder/prompt and aid recall.
For example:

Answer 2

Context – external/environmental cues
E.g. a room, smell, weather
State – internal cues
E.g. physical or emotional (mood) state

Question 3

Tulving (1973) proposed…

Answer 3

…the encoding specificity principle, which assumes that recall is likely to be poorer if the context of recall is different to how it was during coding.
It also suggests that the effectiveness of a retrieval cue is dependent upon:
- How overloaded it is (the fewer number of items associated with it, the more effective the cue is)
- How deep the processing of the cue was
- How well the cue fits the information that is associated with it

Question 4

There are two types of cue-dependent forgetting:

Answer 4

Context-dependent failure
State-dependent failure

Question 5

Context-Dependent Forgetting

Answer 5

This occurs when the external environment is different at recall from where the information was originally learned.
It is proposed that the environment is coded with the information you learn, and then can act as a trigger for recall.

Question 6

Context-Dependent Forgetting: Research evidence
Abernethy (1940) found….

Answer 6

Abernethy (1940) found that participants recalled material less well when tested by an unfamiliar teacher in an unfamiliar room compared to those who were tested by a familiar teacher in a familiar classroom.
This supports context-dependent failure as an explanation for forgetting because forgetting was more likely to occur when there was a lack of context cues.

Question 7

Context-Dependent Forgetting: Research evidence
Godden and Baddeley (1975)

Answer 7

Godden and Baddeley (1975)
Asked scuba divers to learn lists of words either on dry land or underwater.
Recall was found to be poorer when they were tested in a different context to coding (different to where they had learned the information e.g. learnt on land, recalled underwater).
This supports context-dependent forgetting because it shows…
…that the physical environment i.e. context, acts as a retrieval cue, thus forgetting will occur in its absence

Question 8

State-dependent forgetting occurs when

Answer 8

internal retrieval cues (either your physical or emotional state) are different at the point at which information is learned and then recalled.

Question 9

State-Dependent Forgetting
Overton (1972)

Answer 9

Participants learned material when drunk or sober.
They then had to recall the material - half were in the same state as they were when they learned the material (e.g. drunk both times or sober both times), half were in a different state (e.g. drunk then sober or vice-versa).
Findings: It was shown that those who were in a different state at coding and recall performed worse on the recall test.
Conclusions: This therefore supports state-dependent forgetting because it show that an individual’s physical state acts as a retrieval cue, thus forgetting will occur in its absence.

Question 10

State-Dependent Forgetting
Darley et al. (1973):

Answer 10

Procedures: Participants were given marijuana and then asked to hide money.
Findings: They were less able to recall where they had hidden the money when not under the influence of the drug, however, when they were high again they were more able to locate it.
Conclusions: This supports state-dependent failure as an explanation of forgetting as it seems that the participants’ internal state acted as a cue.

Question 11

Category Headings as Retrieval Cues
Category headings often act as retrieval cues and help participants to remember more words compared to ‘free-recall’.
This was demonstrated by Tulving and Pearlstone (1966)

Answer 11

This was demonstrated by Tulving and Pearlstone (1966) who gave participants a list of 48 words to learn, organised into 12 categories of 4 words each. At the top of each category was a one word heading (e.g. fruit) and participants were instructed to learn the words but told they didn’t need to learn the headings.
The participants were tested, half were presented with the category headings, half without.
Findings: Those presented with the headings remembered more words, presumably as the headings acted as cues to trigger the recall of the 4 words.

Question 12

Evaluation of Retrieval ForgettingEvaluating the use of highly controlled laboratory studies to investigate cue-dependent forgetting:
A key strength of using highly controlled laboratory studies to investigate cue-dependent forgetting is that….

Answer 12

….extraneous variables can be minimised,
….which means that the results have high internal validity and it is easier to establish a cause-effect relationship. Replication is also possible.

Question 13

:(However, a limitation of using highly controlled laboratory studies to investigate cue-dependent forgetting is that….

Answer 13

….the tasks are often artificial e.g. learning lists of meaningless word pairs (which we are not usually expected to do in everyday life),
….which means that the results tend to have low ecological validity, because the tasks do not relate to real-life experiences that might lead to cue-dependent forgetting – they lack mundane realism.

Question 14

Evaluation of Retrieval Failure
However, in Godden and Baddeley’sstudy context-dependent forgetting only occurred when the divers had to free-recall the items they had learned.

Answer 14

When asked to recognise the words they had been shown there was no context-dependent effect (being in the same underwater/on-land environment as where they learned the words did not reduce the number of words forgotten).
Therefore, cues only prevent forgetting in a recall scenario - cues have no effect when the participants are tested using recognition.
This suggests that….the cue-dependency explanation cannot explain all incidences of forgetting - if someone fails to recognise something it is unlikely to be due to an absence of cues.

Question 15

:)The idea of retrieval cues fits with the Levels of Processing theory of memory:

Answer 15

Levels of Processing theory (LoP) suggests that information that is deeply processed at coding (e.g. how much thinking and what type of thinking occurs when processing the information) is less likely to be forgotten.
This is because more links and associations are created between items in the LTM, providing more retrieval cues.

Question 16

:)Real-world applications:

Answer 16

Eyewitness Testimony: One practical use of the knowledge and understanding gained by psychologists about cue-dependent forgetting is that of police reconstructions of crimes.
The aim is to enhance the memory of eyewitnesses by mentally recreating the context of the incident through the use of retrieval cues. This is known as the Cognitive Interview.

Question 17

Real-world applications:
Education

Answer 17

Education: Research by Smith (1979) showed that even imagining the room you were in when you learned information is just as effective as being in the same room at the time of retrieval, so students should imagine the room in which they revised.
This suggests that the theory has successful real-world applications.