Explanations for forgetting: Retrieval failure

Question 1

What is retrieval failure?

Answer 1

forgetting as we do not have the necessary cues to access memory.

Question 2

What is the encoding specificity principle?

Answer 2

• By Tulving (1983)
• He stated if a cue is going to be helpful, it has to be 1. present at encoding and 2. Present at retrieval.
• Some cues are encoded meaningfully and are used in mneumonic techniques

Question 3

What are the two types of non meaningful cues?

Answer 3

• Context - dependent forgetting - recall depends on an external cue
• State - dependent forgetting - recall depends on an internal cue

Question 4

What is the research on context - dependent forgetting

Answer 4

• Baddely and Godden studied deep - sea divers and made them learn a list of words underwater or on land and recall them either on land or underwater
  1 - learn on land, recall on land
  2 - learn on land, recall underwater
  3 - learn underwater, recall on land
  4 - learn underwater, recall underwater

Question 5

Explain the findings of Baddelys and Goddens research

Answer 5

• recall was 40% lower in non - matching conditions

Question 6

Describe research on state - dependent forgetting

Answer 6

• Carter and Cassaday gave antihistamine drugs to participants
• this caused internal psychology to differ
• They then created four conditions
  1. Learn on drug - recall on drug
  2. Learn on drug - recall sober
  3. Learn sober - recall sober
  4. Learn sober - recall on drug

Question 7

What were the findings of Carter and Cassaday

Answer 7

• the mismatch caused memory performance to be significantly lost.
• when cues are absent, there is more forgetting

Question 8

What are two strengths of RF

Answer 8

1. RWA = retrieval cues can help overcome forgetting in everyday life as they can provide us with strategies to improve memory
2. Research support = Baddely, carter and cassaday show that a lack of cues decreases remembering in every day life as well as lab controlled studies. However, the key feature of these studies, making participants recall information in different places is very unlikely

Question 9

What is a limitation of RF

Answer 9

• context- dependent forgetting may depend on the type of memory tested
• Goden and Baddely replicated their research and made them say if they recognised a word and not recall them. When recognition was tested, there was no forgetting showing that context-dependent forgetting only occurs when retrieving