Explanations For Forgetting - Retrieval Failure Flashcards
Retrieval failure due to the absence of cues
When info is stored in memory, associated cues are stored with it.
If these cues are not available at time of recall, memories that are in storage may be inaccessible.
Encoding specificity principle (ESP)
Tulving (1983)
cues help retrieval if these same cues are present at time of encoding.
The closer the retrieval cue to the encoded cue, the better the cue works to aid recall.
Some cues have meaning linked to the memory
Cues can be linked to the material-to-be-remembered in a meaningful way. E.g. ‘STM’ may lead you to recall all of the information you have stored about the short-term memory
Some cues have no meaningful link
Cues that are encoded at the time of learning do not always have a meaningful link to the learned material.
Context-dependant forgetting:
Memory retrieval dependant on an external/environmental cue such as the weather or location
State-dependant forgetting:
Memory retrieval is dependent on an internal cue such as state of mind - being inebriated or being upset
Godden and Baddeley (1975) - context-dependant forgetting
Procedure:
Deep-sea divers - cues were the contexts where learning and recall took place - on land or underwater.
Deep sea divers learned word lists either on land or in water, and then asked to recall either on land or in water.
Findings/conclusions:
When environmental contexts of learning and recall were different - accurate recall was 40% lower than when the conditions were the same for both learning and recall.
When external cues present at learning were not present at time of recall - retrieval failure occurred due to this lack of cues.
This study demonstrates context m-dependent forgetting for this reason.
✅very large base of evidence supports retrieval failure
- Godden + Baddeley’s deep-sea divers research
Eysenck (2010) argued that retrieval failure was the main reason for forgetting in the LTM.
Strength, as supporting evidence increases a theory’s validity.
❌context effects may not be as strong in real life
Baddeley (1966)
Different contexts have to be extremely different before an effect is seen (on land vs underwater)
Learning in one room and recalling in a different room is unlikely to result in the level of forgetting seen in the deep-sea diver study - as the environments are not different enough.
Whilst retrieval failure can explain outlying instances of forgetting - it is not wholly applicable to everyday instances.
❌ESP cannot be tested - leads to circular reasoning.
If a cue produces successful recall of a word - we assume that the cue must have been present at the time of learning.
If a cue doesn’t result in successful recall, we assume that the cue was not present at the time of learning.
However there is no way to know whether the cue had been encoded or not - so we cannot know the cue’s true effect if we do not know whether or not it was even present at the time of learning.
✅Context-related cues have useful everyday applications
When people have trouble remembering something - they can return to the context in which they experienced it to try and aid recall.
This technique is used in the cognitive interview (reinstatement of the context) to help eyewitnesses recall information about crime scenes.
