Explanations for forgetting: Retrieval failure

Question 1

What is retrieval failure?

Answer 1

Forgetting due to the memory being there, but inaccessible

Question 2

Why does retrieval failure occur?

Answer 2

Due to the absence of cues

Question 3

What are cues?

Answer 3

Things that serve as reminders

Question 4

What are the 2 types of cues?

Answer 4

Internal and external

Question 5

What is an internal cue?

Answer 5

An internal stimulus (e.g. a mental state/emotion)

Question 6

What is an external cue?

Answer 6

An external stimulus (e.g. a place)

Question 7

Who proposed the encoding specificity principle (ESP)?

Answer 7

Tulving and Thomson

Question 8

What is the encoding specificity principle?

Answer 8

Memory is most effective if the cues present at the time of learning are present at the time of recall

Question 9

Outline the study by Tulving and Pearlstone.

Answer 9

48 words in 12 categories, participants asked to free recall or given the name of the category

Question 10

What principle does Tulving and Pearlstone’s results support?

Answer 10

Encoding specificity principle

Question 11

In the free recall condition of Tulving and Pearlstone’s study, what percentage of words were recalled?

Answer 11

40%

Question 12

In the cued recall condition of Tulving and Pearlstone’s study, what percentage of words were recalled?

Answer 12

60%

Question 13

What did Abernethy conduct a study on?

Answer 13

Context-dependent forgetting

Question 14

What were the 4 experimental conditions of Abernethy’s study?

Answer 14

Tested in teaching room by normal instructor, tested in different room by different instructor, tested in teaching room by different instructor and tested in different room by normal instructor

Question 15

What did Abernethy find?

Answer 15

The participants that were tested in their teaching room by their normal instructors performed best

Question 16

What are the 4 AO3 points of the retrieval failure explanation of forgetting?

Answer 16

1) Research support for state and context dependent forgetting
2) RWA
3) Retrieval cues don’t always work
4) Retrieval failure explains interference effects

Question 17

What did Godden and Baddeley investigate?

Answer 17

The effect of contextual cues

Question 18

What were the 4 experimental conditions of Godden and Baddeley’s study?

Answer 18

Learnt on land and recalled on land, learn underwater and recalled underwater, learnt on land and recalled underwater, and learnt underwater and recalled on land

Question 19

What did Godden and Baddeley find?

Answer 19

Highest recall occurred when initial context matched the recall environment

Question 20

What did Goodwin study?

Answer 20

State dependent forgetting

Question 21

What were the 4 experimental conditions of Goodwin’s study?

Answer 21

Learnt when drunk and recalled when drunk, learnt when drunk and recalled when sober, learnt when sober and recalled when sober, learnt when sober and recalled when drunk

Question 22

What did Goodwin find?

Answer 22

Highest recall occurred when initial state matched the recall state

Question 23

What does the retrieval failure explanation of forgetting have RWA to?

Answer 23

Revision

Question 24

How can Abernethy’s findings be applied to real life?

Answer 24

You ought to revise in the room you will take your exams in

Question 25

What technique can research about mental cues be applied to?

Answer 25

The cognitive interview

Question 26

Why don't retrieval cues always work?

Answer 26

The information we learn is related to a lot more than just cues

Question 27

Why does research into retrieval failure lack mundane realism?

Answer 27

Participants learn word lists

Question 28

Why can't retrieval failure explain most real-life forgetting?

Answer 28

Real-life learning tends to be remembering facts and exam techniques that are less easily triggered by single cues

Question 29

What is the outshining hypothesis?

Answer 29

Where a cues effectiveness is reduced by the presence of better cues

Question 30

How was has research linked interference effects and retrieval failure?

Answer 30

One study found that interference effects are due to the absence of cues

Question 31

In the study that found a link between interference effects and the absence of cues, how many word lists were participants given?

Answer 31

6

Question 32

In the study that found a link between interference effects and the absence of cues, what were the word lists?

Answer 32

24 words from 6 different categories

Question 33

In the study that found a link between interference effects and the absence of cues, what was found in the free recall condition?

Answer 33

The more lists a participant had to learn, the worse their performance was (evidence of retroactive interference)

Question 34

In the study that found a link between interference effects and the absence of cues, what was found in the cued recall condition?

Answer 34

The effects of interference disappeared