Forgetting Flashcards
Ebbinghaus
Created the forgetting curve
Learned loads of non-sense syllables and tested himself with relative relearning time trials (savings)
Until immidiate recall = 100%, curve
- 20 min = 58%
- 1 hr = 44%
- 9 hrs = 36%
- 1 day 33%
E. Did find time of the day effect (13% better in the morning), Heller did not. Were however very similar curves.
Sleep effect
After 1 day there’s a bump in retrieval, has to do with sleep
Serial position
Effect of position of syllable had large effect;
recency effect (and little priming effect)
Function of forgetting
Q(t) = (1+u1t) -a (savings as a function of time)
Power function so gives straight line when plotted in log-log
Permastore
The platau of forgetting, Bahrick showed forgetting continues until about 3 to 12 years (depending on material), than halts. He called remaining memories permastore
Proactive interference
Recall becomes worse with three word Brown-Peterson paradigm.
The previous trials start interfering with the new ones, so recall worsens
Same with ‘head start’. Cueing someone with some words of a list messes up the retrieval process and worsens performance.
Release of interference
Unexpected stimuli. Eg if the three words were within one category and you suddenly change to another, the interference is released
Fan effect
The more you know, the more you forget.
Associative interference. = when there are more related items linked to a single cue, it takes longer to retrieve any one of them.
Interference theory
Idea that memory gets worse if two memories interfere. Seen in
- Part-set cueing (helping with a set)
- Fan effect
- Proactive interference