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

Examine the effects of external cues on forgetting

Question 6

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Procedure

Answer 6

• Sample of 18 participants.
• 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

point: A strength of Godden and Baddeley’s study into context dependent forgetting is that it ensures that all variables are carefully controlled.

evidence: This was done by controlling the environment in which participants’ learned and recalled information. The environmental context was manipulated yet the material being learned was kept constant. This factor helps to distinguish that it is the context in which information is learned and recalled that affects forgetting, and not any other factor.

justification: This suggests that there is a direct cause and effect link, whereby the impact of having similar or different environments during encoding and retrieval has an impact on memory. As a result of this, this study has high internal validity.

Question 10

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Strength

Answer 10

point: Godden and Baddeley’s study into context dependent forgetting is approved of for its applications to real life.

evidence: This study supports the cue dependent recall theory, which suggests that a lack of cues during encoding and retrieval of a piece of information leads to forgetting. This is particularly useful in crime scenes when police need to collect more information. They can do this by taking a victim or eye-witness back to the scene of the crime to trigger any memories so they can recall more information.

justification: This highlights that this study has high external validity as it examines a concept which is heavily impactful in real-life.

Question 11

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Weakness

Answer 11

point: This study has been criticised for issues regarding generalisability.

evidence: The study was a repeated measures design. This would have impacted the findings of this study as the participants may have grown accustomed to the method of the study and in turn display order effects. This means that their performance may have been better or worse in the following conditions because they had already participated in one of the conditions and not because of retrieval failure. In addition, the study only contained a sample of 18 participants which is significantly small to generalise from

justification: These factors lower the internal validity of this study as it doesn’t entirely measure what it intends to measure, but it also lowers population validity as the findings aren’t representative of the whole population and therefore cannot be generalised.

Question 12

Case Study - Godden and Baddeley (1975) - Weakness

Answer 12

point: This study has been criticised for its unrealistic nature.

evidence: One of the main problems with this study is that it involves a sample of divers. It is highly unlikely that in reality, people will be asked to learn and recall information whilst on land and underwater, therefore the findings of this study cannot be generalised to all context cues. Moreover, whilst context dependent forgetting may be exhibited in everyday life, it may not be to the extent to which this study portrays it to be.

justification: This lowers the external validity of this study as the procedure isn’t entirely relative to the type of context dependent forgetting people may experience in everyday life and hence doesn’t explain the depth to which context dependent forgetting affects people.

Question 13

State dependent forgetting

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Case Study - Carter and Cassaday (1998) - Aim

Answer 14

Examine the effects of internal cues on forgetting

Question 15

Case Study - Carter and Cassaday (1998) - Procedure

Answer 15

• Sample of 48 participants.
• 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 Cassaday (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 Cassaday (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 Cassaday (1998) - Strength

Answer 18

point: Carter and Cassaday’s study has been approved of for its controlled nature.

evidence: Since it was a laboratory experiment, clear manipulation of the independent variable, which was the drug-induced state, allowed for a strong cause and effect relationship. The researchers were able to demonstrate how memory recall was affected by the state the participants’ were in at the time of learning and recall. Moreover, other factors, such as the type of drug used, were kept constant to avoid interfering with the findings of the study.

justification: This means that the study is measuring what it intends to measure, meaning that the the findings of the study are exclusively about the effect of someone’s internal state during encoding and retrieval, and not any other factor. As a result, this increases the internal validity of this study.

Question 19

Case Study - Carter and Cassaday (1998) - Strength

Answer 19

point: This study has practical applications for understanding how memory works in real-life situations.

evidence: An example of this is when people who are feeling sick or taking medication have trouble recalling information if they are in a different state of mind compared to when they learned a piece of information. This can therefore be applied to situations like studying while ill or during exams.

justification: This increases the external validity of this study as it can be applied to real-life situations.

Question 20

Case Study - Carter and Cassaday (1998) - Weakness

Answer 20

point: This study has been criticised for overlooking generalisability issues.

evidence: This was largely due to the sample of the study. The participants were all university students, which limits the generalisability of the findings to other populations, for example, older people may respond to the antihistamine drug differently. This extends to people of varying health conditions or educational backgrounds.

justification: This lowers the population validity of the study as the findings are only representative of one aspect of the population.

Question 21

Case Study - Carter and Cassaday (1998) - Weakness

Answer 21

point: A weakness of this study is that it is highly unrealistic.

evidence: This study only observed the effects of state-dependent memory over a short period of time. This itself is an issue as most state-dependent problems don’t last over a small frame of time but perhaps hours or days. In regards to drugs, most drugs, whether used for medical or recreational use, last a long period of time. However, another problem is that this study doesn’t account for the population who don’t use drugs, in which the effects of state-dependent problems they may go through, such as fatigue, may be less severe. As a result, this study doesn’t explore cases where the effects are long-lasting and doesn’t consider alternative types of state-dependent problems.

justification: This lowers the external validity of this study.

Question 22

Retrieval Failure - Strength

Answer 22

• Refer to study by Godden & Baddeley or Carter & Cassaday.

Question 23

Retrieval Failure - Strength

Answer 23

point: A strength of the retrieval failure explanation of forgetting is that it has many practical applications.

evidence: Retrieval failure suggests that a lack of cues during encoding and retrieval of a piece of information leads to forgetting. This is particularly useful in crime scenes when police need to collect more information. They can do this by taking a victim or eye-witness back to the scene of the crime to trigger any memories so they can recall more information.

justification: This highlights that this explanation of forgetting has high external validity as it examines a concept which is heavily impactful in real-life.

Question 24

Retrieval Failure - Weakness

Answer 24

point: The context effect may be related to the kind of memory tested and not due to the accessibility of cues.

evidence: Godden and Baddeley replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of recall. Participants 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.

justification: This is a limitation of context effects as it means that the presence or absence of cues affects memory when you test it in a certain way. As a result, this is a weakness of retrieval failure as it doesn’t take into consideration the different types of ways memory can be tested and how cues can impact this. Instead, it takes a very constricted view by suggesting that retrieval failure affects all types of memory.

Question 25

Retrieval Failure - Weakness

Answer 25

point: Retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting has been criticised for problems regarding the encoding specificity principle (ESP).

evidence: The issue with it is that it 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.

justification: As a result, this reduces the scientific credibility of this theory as it relies excessively on a non-testable principle which can only provide assumptions into forgetting rather than tangible and observable evidence.