M - Explanations for forgetting: Retrieval failure

Question 1

What are cues?

Answer 1

Things that serve as a reminder. They may meaningfully link to the material to be remembered or may not be meaningfully linked, such as environmental cues (a room) or cues related to your mental state (being sad or drunk).

Question 2

Retrieval failure

Answer 2

Occurs due to the absence of cues. An explanation for forgetting based on the idea that the issue relates to being able to retrieve a memory that is there (available) but not accessible. Retrieval depends on using cues.

Question 3

What is forgetting in LTM mainly due to?

Answer 3

Retrieval failure.

Question 4

When did Endel Tulving and Donald Thomson (1973) propose that memory is most effective?

Answer 4

If information that was present at encoding is also available at the time of retrieval.

Question 5

What does the encoding specificity principle state?

Answer 5

That a cue doesn’t have to be exactly right but the closer the cue is to the original item, the more useful it will be.

Question 6

Who studied the value of retrieval cues?

Answer 6

Tulving and Pearlstone (1966)

Question 7

Explain how Tulving and Pearlstone (1966) demonstrated the value of retrieval cues

Answer 7

Ptts had to learn 48 words belonging to 12 categories. Each word was presented as category + word, e.g. fruit-apple, fruit-orange. There were two different recall conditions. Ppts either had to recall as many words as they could (free recall) or they were given cues in the form of the category names (cued recall).

Question 8

What were the result of the Tulving and Pearlstone (1966) study on retrieval cues

Answer 8

In the free recall condition 40% of the words were recalled on average, whereas in the cued-recall condition ppts recalled 60% of the words.

Question 9

What do the results of the study done by Tulving and Pearlstone on retrieval cues provide evidence for?

Answer 9

Evidence of cues that have been explicitly or implicitly encoded at the time of learning and have a meaningful link to the learning material.

Question 10

Apart for meaningfully linked cues, what other cues are their for remembering things?

Answer 10

Environmental cues (context) and how we felt at the time (emotional state).

Question 11

Who carried out a study on context-dependent forgetting?

Answer 11

Ethel Abernethy (1940) but also Godden and Baddeley (1975).

Question 12

Describe the study done by Ethel Abernethy on context-dependent forgetting

Answer 12

She arranged for a group of students to be tested before a certain course began. They were then tested each week. Some students were tested in their teaching room by their usual instructor, whereas others were tested by a different instructor. Others were tested in a different room by either their usual instructor or by a different one. There were 4 experimental conditions in this study.

Question 13

Describe the results of the study done by Ethel Abernethy on context-dependent forgetting (the study with the students being tested)

Answer 13

Those tested by the same instructor in the same room performed best. Presumably familiar things (room and instructor) acted as memory cues. Abernethy also found that superior students were least affected by the changes and the inferior students the most.

Question 14

What did Godden and Baddeley (1975) investigate?

Answer 14

The effect of contextual cues

Question 15

Explain the study done by Godden and Baddeley (1975) on the effect of contextual cues on context-dependent forgetting

Answer 15

The researchers recruited scuba divers as ppts and arranged for them to learn a set of words either on land or underwater. Subsequently, they were tested either on land or underwater, so there were four experimental conditions.

Question 16

Describe the results of the study done by Godden and Baddeley on context-dependent forgetting (scuba divers)

Answer 16

The results showed that highest recall occurred when the initial context matched the recall environment, e.g. learning on land and recalling on land.

Question 17

Who did a study on state-dependent forgetting?

Answer 17

Goodwin et al. (1969)

Question 18

Explain the study done by Goodwin et al. (1969) on state-dependent forgetting

Answer 18

They asked male volunteers to remember a list of words when they were either drunk or sober (those in the drunk condition imbibed about three times the UK drink driving limit). The ppts were asked to recall the lists after 24 hours when some were sober but others had to get drunk again (for experimental purposes).

Question 19

Describe the results of the study done by Goodwin et al. on state-dependent forgetting

Answer 19

The recall scores suggested that information learned when drunk is more available when in the same state later.

(Those tested in the same state as when they learned the words had higher recall than those who had changed their state).