Explanations of forgetting Flashcards
What are the 2 types of interferences that explain forgetting?
- retrospective - new disrupts old
- proactive - old disrupts new
Who supports the interference explanation of forgetting?
McGeoch and McDonald
What did McGeoch and McDonald do?
6 groups to learn 10 adjectives
learn a new list with similar meanings, opposite meaning, or various control lists or a rest with no learnings
recall the first list
no interference in the rest condition - did better
those in the synonym condition performed poorly
the similarity of synonyms created greater interference causing more forgetting
What is the evaluation of interference as an explanation of forgetting?
+ lab studies - high control and standardised procedures
+ easy to apply to real life
- lacking in validity or mundane realism
- rare to get interferences
What is Ebbinghaus’ serial position curve?
show how the memory operates when we try to recall a word list in any order
What is the primary effect?
• Stage 1 serial position curve
words heard first have the advantage of no interference until the words learnt later interfere
What is the recency effect?
• last stage in serial position curve
words heard last have the advantage of little retro active interference but there could be proactive interference
What is another explanation of forgetting?
retrieval failure
What is retrieval failure?
memory is still available just not accessible
What is a cue?
•retrieval failure
things that serve as a reminder
meaningful? linked to material?
3.g., environmental cues or a mental state
Who researched into encoding specificity principle and what did they find?
Tulving
if a cue is to help recall then it has to be present both at encoding and retrieval
therefore if cues are absent or if they are different then forgetting will occur
What is context dependent in the retrieval failure explanation of forgetting?
learning and recalling are in different places
What is state dependent in the retrieval failure explanation of forgetting?
learning and recalling are in different moods or physical states
Who researched into context dependence and what did they find?
Godden and Baddely
got diver to learn words on land and water
4 conditions: learn land recall water, learn land recall land, learn water recall water, learn water recall land
accuracy was 40% lower when learning was different to recall
Who researched into state dependence and what did they do?
Carter and Cassidy
learning list of words on and off drugs
4 conditions: learn on drugs recall on drugs, learn on drugs recall not on drugs, learn not on drugs recall on drugs, learn not on drugs recall not on drugs
when conditions were different recall was worse
when internal cues are absent there is more forgetting
