Explanations of Forgetting: Retrieval Failure

Question 1

why may people forget information(cues)?

Answer 1

there are insufficient cues

Question 2

what is the importance of cues in memory?

Answer 2

• when information is initially placed in memory, associated cues are stored at the same time
• if the cues are not available at the time of recall we appear to have forgotten the information

Question 3

what is retrieval failure?

Answer 3

not being able to access memories that are there

Question 4

what is the encoding specificity principle?

Answer 4

• a cue has to be both present at encoding and present at retrieval
• if the cues at encoding and retrieval are different we can forget

Question 5

what cues are meaningful?

Answer 5

some cues are encoded at the time of learning in a meaningful way, e.g. mnemonic techniques

Question 6

what are examples of non-meaningful cues?

Answer 6

• context-dependent forgetting
• state-dependent forgetting

Question 7

what is context-dependent forgetting?

Answer 7

recall depends on external cue

Question 8

what is state-dependent forgetting?

Answer 8

recall depends on internal cue

Question 9

who are the researchers involved in context-dependent forgetting?

Answer 9

Godden and Baddeley

Question 10

what is Godden and Baddeley do?

Answer 10

• studied deep-sea divers who work underwater
• divers learned a list of words either underwater/on land and had to recall underwater/on land
• 4 conditions

Question 11

what was the findings of Godden and Baddeley?

Answer 11

• accurate recall was 40% lower in non-matching conditions
• external cues available at learning were different from ones available at recall

Question 12

who were the researchers involved in state-dependent forgetting?

Answer 12

Carter and Cassaday

Question 13

what did Carter and Cassaday do?

Answer 13

• gave antihistamines drugs to their ppts
• antihistamines gave a mild sedative effect = ppts drowsy
• this created an internal physiological state different from normal state of being awake and alert
• ppts had to learn list of words and passages of prose and recall information
• 4 conditions

Question 14

what were the findings of Carter and Cassaday?

Answer 14

• when there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance was significantly worse
• cues were absent = forget

Question 15

what are the evaluations of retrieval failure?

Answer 15

+ retreival cues can help overcome some forgetting in everyday situations
+ research supports the retrieval failure explanation
- context effects may depend substantially on the type of memory being tested