forgetting Flashcards
Describe the forgetting curve first offered by Ebbinghaus (1885)
forgetting isnt linear and its dependant on time
Describe the studies by Bahrick (1984) and Bahrick et al. (1975) – how do they relate to the work of Ebbinghaus?
Bahrick (1984) - ppts who took spanish 1 to 50 years ago, and tested them, results: declined expenetially first few years, retention in next 30 years same.
Bahrick (1975) - very long mem test, 2 weeks to 57 weeks after graduating, free recal (first and last name), cued recognition (match names to faces) results: poor free reacll (15%), cued (90%)
MEM DECLINES OVER LONG PERIODS OF TIME - SUPPORTS EBBINGHAUS
What is retroactive interference? Proactive interference?
Retroactive interference = newer material disrupts learning/reacll of previous material
Proactive interference = older info disrupts learning/recall of newer info
Describe the classic strategy used to study pro- and retroactive interference
in a lab using word pairs
Jacoby et al. (2001) argued that proactive interference might occur for two reasons. What were they? … and what did they find?
- might occur if the correct response is very weak or the incorrect response is very strong (mainly incorrects strength)
- proactive interference reflects an influence of accessibility bias (habit e.g strength of incorrect response), rather than discrimination (recollection e.g weakness of correct response)
What did Bauml and Kliegl (2013) propose about proactive interference
proactive interference depends on retrieval processes.
- ppts were either given 3 lists of words, either told to recall last list, forget first 2 lists or only presented last list
What did jacob et al (2015) discover, and what does it tell us about interference
when ppts had an instruction to detect changes in word pairs, it lead to proactive/ retroactive facilitation.
Tells us that to reduce interference, u must improve distinctivness.
What is meant by cue based forgetting
two types of tasks: free recall (name people on a whim) and recognition (name people with given hints)
- cue provides assitance
What is cue overload
- forgetting happens when there is a poor match between the mem and info available at retrieval.
- the ability of a cue to disriminate the correct answer from incorrect ones, depending on how many targets are associated with it.
- the more associations, the higher the cue overload
What is the encoding specificity principle
- forgetting due to the lack of appropriate retrieval cues
-idea that cues and context help in recall - Tulving (1979)= degree of overlap between a cue and a given representation is thought to heighten the probability of retrieval.
Describe the study by Godden and baddeley (1975) on the effects of context on memory
- divers studied 40 words while on the beach or under the water, recall on land or water
- recall was higher when learnt and recall was the same (context dependent memory)
Describe the study by Goh and Lu 2012 (cue overload theory)
- LOW OVERLOAD: cue is finger, target is nail, other targets is couch, bird.
- HIGH OVERLOAD: cue is finger, target is nail, other targets is toe, hand.
(THE MORE ASSOCIATIONS THE HIGHER THE CUE OVERLOAD) - INTRA LIST CUE: target is park grove, and they are given park
- STRONG EXTRA LIST CUE: target is aeroplane bird, given feather
- WEAK EXTRA LIST CUE: target is roof tin, given armour
EFFECT OF BOTH DISTINCTIVNESS OF CUE AND OVERLAP(more recall for intra list cue and low overload)
explain consolidation theory
memorys are more susseptable to interference straight after being learnt rather than after long periods of time.
How is consolidation related to Jost’s and Ribot’s laws?
JOSTS LAW - the older of two memories of the same strength will decay more slowly
RIBOTS LAW - newly formed memories are more fragile than older ones in brain injury patients
What is reconsolidation
the process of replacing/disrupting a stored memory with a new version of memory.
