Forgetting Flashcards
Interference is when…
two pieces of information conflict with each other. This can result in forgetting one or two pieces of information or a distortion of memory.
What is Retroactive interference?
When a new memory interferes with an old one
What is Pro-active interference?
When an old memory interferes with a new one
Trace Decay theory of forgetting is…
The assumption that memories leave a trace in the brain as some form of physical or chemical chance in the nervous system. This theory states that forgetting occurs as a result of automatic decay or fading of the memory trace. Focuses on limited duration of STM.
Interference theory is …
Where memory can be disrupted or interfered with by what we have previously learned or will learn in the future. Information in the LTM may become confused or combined with other information during encoding.
A strength(PEEL) ..
P- There is a study to support the presence of retroactive interference
E- Postman in 1960 performed a study where a control group and an experimental group had to recall a list of paired words. The experimental group had to then learn an additional list where the second word of each pair was different. The experimental group had worse recall than the control group.
E- This shows that retrospective interference had occurred as the new information from the second list had interfered with the information from the first list for the experimental group.
L- Increases the validity of retrospective interference as a way of ‘forgetting’
Retrieval failure is…
The failure to find an item of information due to insignificant cues.
Who proposed the encoding specificity principle (memory is most effective when information that was present at the time of coding was also present at retrieval.)?
Tulving and Thompson(1973)
Argued theses cues can be environmental or emotional
Context dependent forgetting…
Is the lack of external environmental cues
State dependent forgetting…
Is the lack of internal cues
One strength of context-dependent forgetting(PEEL)..
P- A significant number of studies which support the explanation
E- Gordan and Baddeley’s study in 1975 where a list of words were given to deep-sea divers. They were made to recall the list under 4 conditions: learn on land-recall on land, learn on land-recall underwater, learn underwater-recall on land, learn underwater- recall
E- The non-matching conditions of different environments showed a 40% lower recall than matching conditions as there were no cues in the environment to help divers retrieve information.
L- Supports the idea of context-dependent forgetting as with no external-environmental cues, divers had more trouble remembering the list of words.
