interference theory

Question 1

strength:there is research support for retroactive interference as an explanation for forgetting

Answer 1

E:McGeoch and McDonald had participants learn and recall a list of words. before recall they either did nothing or learnt a second list . they found that recall was best for the controlled condition but became worse when the second list was made similar to the first one.
E:this provides research support for interference theory as an explanation of forgetting. leaning the second list generated new information that retroactively interfered with the recall of the older memory.
L:therefore this study provides support for retroactive interference as an explanation for forgetting.

Question 2

limitation: a lot of supporting research lacks ecological validity

Answer 2

E:McGeoch and McDonalds research on interference tests participants on random lists of words in an artificial setting (lab)
E:this would not normally happen in a real world scenario . usually people learn information with meaning such as events and names . testing recall on a generated list of words in controlled settings may help control variables but the research becomes highly artificial. this means that results may not be generalisable to real settings where forgetting can happen .
L:this undermines the inference theory as an explanation for forgetting