Forgetting: Retrieval Failure

Question 1

What is Retrieval Failure?

Answer 1

Retrieval failure is the idea that the reason people forget things is because of insufficient cues. When memories are stored, associated cues are stored at the same time. If cues aren’t available for a memory then you may think that you have forgotten it but it’s actually due to retrieval failure.

Question 2

Tulving (1983) - Encoding Specificity Principle (ESP)

Answer 2

If a cue helps us recall information, then it has to be present at encoding and retrieval of the memory. A lack of cues when remembering a memory leads to forgetting.

Question 3

What are the 2 types of forgetting?

Answer 3

1. Context Dependent Forgetting
2. State Dependent Forgetting

Question 4

Context Dependent Forgetting

Answer 4

Memory performance is reduced when an individual’s environment differs from encoding to retrieval than if the two environments were the same.

Question 5

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Aim

Answer 5

Examined deep sea divers and their ability to retrieve information in different environments (external cues).

Question 6

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Procedure

Answer 6

• They were asked to learn information either underwater or on land
• They were asked to recall the same information either underwater or on land
• The 4 conditions:
  1) Learn on land - recall on land
  2) Learn underwater - recall underwater
  3) Learn on land - recall underwater
  4) Learn underwater - recall on land

Question 7

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Findings

Answer 7

Accurate recall was 40% lower in the conditions where their learning and recall environment didn’t match.

Question 8

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Conclusion

Answer 8

Environmental cues during learning and recall are important in forgetting.

Question 9

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Strength

Answer 9

Good internal validity as measures what it’s supposed to measure (how recall is affected by the environment you’re in.

Question 10

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Strength

Answer 10

Can be applied to real life and is good evidence to support the cue dependant recall theory - especially in crime scenes when police need to collect more information, they can take the victim back to the scene of the crime to trigger any memories so they can recall more information.

Question 11

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Weakness

Answer 11

Study was carried out on divers so cant be generalised to wider population - repeated measures design (same people in different conditions of the iv).

Question 12

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Weakness

Answer 12

Lacks ecological validity as was carried out in two uncontrolled environments.

Question 13

State dependent forgetting

Answer 13

State dependent forgetting occurs when your mood or physiological state during recall is different from the mood you were in when you were learning.

Question 14

Case Study - Carter and Cassady (1998) - Aim

Answer 14

Examined the effects of internal cues on forgetting

Question 15

Case Study - Carter and Cassady (1998) - Procedure

Answer 15

• Participants were given antihistamine drugs creating an internal physiological state of drowsiness different from a normal awake and alert state.
• They were asked to learn a list of words and prose
• They then recalled it in one of the 4 conditions:
  1) Learn on the drug - recall on the drug
  2) Learn off the drug - recall off the drug
  3) Learn on the drug - recall off the drug
  4) Learn off the drug - recall on the drug

Question 16

Case Study - Carter and Cassady (1998) - Findings

Answer 16

Accurate recall was worse when there was a mismatch of internal state when learning and when recalling.

Question 17

Case Study - Carter and Cassady (1998) - Conclusion

Answer 17

Internal cues must be present at both the point of learning and recall for accurate recall.

Question 18

Case Study - Carter and Cassady (1998) - Strength

Answer 18

Research support from Godden an Baddley. Increases the validity of this explanation of forgetting.

Question 19

Retrieval Failure - Strength

Answer 19

• Supporting evidence.
• A large range of research supports the retrieval failure explanation for forgetting, such as the studies by Godden and Baddeley and Carter and Cassady.
• 1 prominent memory researcher, Michael Eysenck (2010) argues that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM.
• This is a strength as supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation. This is especially true when the evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real-life situations as well as in the highly controlled conditions of the lab.

Question 20

Retrieval Failure - Strength

Answer 20

• Real-life applications.
• Although context-related cues appear not to have a very strong effect on forgetting, Baddeley still suggests that they are worth paying attention to.
• When we are having trouble remembering something, it is probably worth making the effort to try and recall the environment in which you learned it first.

Question 21

Retrieval Failure - Weakness

Answer 21

• Questioning context effects.
• Baddeley (1997) argues that context effects are usually not very strong, especially in real life. Different contexts have to be very different before an effect is seen.
• For example, it would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater.
• In contrast, learning something in one room and recalling in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting as these environments are generally not different enough.
• This is a limitation as it means that the real-life applications of retrieval failure due to contextual cues don’t actually explain much forgetting.

Question 22

Retrieval Failure - Weakness

Answer 22

• Recall vs recognition.
• The context effect may be related to the kind of memory tested.
• Godden and Baddeley (1980) replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of recall - pps had to say whether they recognised a word read to them from the list, instead of retrieving it for themselves. When recognition was tested, there was no context-dependent effect; performance was the same in all 4 conditions.
• This is a further limitation of context effects as it means that the presence or absence of cues affects memory when you test it a certain way.

Question 23

Retrieval Failure - Weakness

Answer 23

• Problems with the ESP.
• ESP is not testable and leads to a form of circular reasoning.
• In experiments where a cue produces the successful recall of a word, we assume that the cue must have been encoded at the time of learning. If a cue does not result in successful recall of a word, then we assume that the cue was not encoded at the time of learning.
• But these are just assumptions, there is no way to independently establish whether or not the cue has really been encoded.