MEM 10 - Forgetting retrieval failure

Question 1

What is retrieval failure?

Answer 1

• A form of forgetting
• It occurs when we don’t have the necessary cues to access memory
• The memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue is provided

Question 2

What is a cue?

Answer 2

• A ‘trigger’ of information that allows us to access a memory
• Such cues may be meaningful or may be indirectly linked by being encoded at the time of learning
• Indirect cues may be external (environment context) or internal (mood or degree of drunkenness)

Question 3

What is context-dependent forgetting?

Answer 3

Recall depends on external cues e.g. weather or place

Question 4

What is state-dependent forgetting?

Answer 4

Recall depends on internal cues e.g feeling upset or being drunk

Question 5

Who conducted the research on context-dependent forgetting?

Answer 5

Duncan Godden and Alan Baddeley (1975)

Question 6

Who came up with the encoding specificity principle (ESP)?

Answer 6

Endel Tulving (1983)

Question 7

What is the ESP?

Answer 7

• This states that a cue has to be both present at encoding (learning) and present at retrieval (recall)
• It follow from this that if the cues are available at encoding an retrieval are different (or if cues are entirely absent at retrieval) there will be some forgetting

Question 8

What was the procedure for the study conducted by Godden and Baddeley?

Answer 8

• Duncan Godden and Alan Baddeley (1975) studied deep-sea divers who work underwater to see if training on land helped or hindered their work underwater
• The divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land and then wear asked to recall the words either underwater or on land

This created four conditions:
- Learn on land => recall on land
- Learn on land => recall underwater
- Learn underwater => recall underwater
- Learn underwater => recall on land

Question 9

What were the results of Godden and Baddeley’s study?

Answer 9

• In two of these conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched, whereas in the other two they did not
• Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions

First is study environment, second is recall environment:
- Land, Land => 13.5
- Land, Water => 8.6
- Water, Land => 8.5
- Water, Water => 11.4

Question 10

What was the conclusion of Godden and Baddeley’s study?

Answer 10

They concluded that the external cues available at learning were different from the ones available at recall and this led to retrieval failure

Question 11

Who conducted the study on state-dependent forgetting?

Answer 11

Sara Carter and Helen Cassady (1998)

Question 12

What was the procedure of the study conducted by Carter and Cassady?

Answer 12

• Sara Carter and Helen Cassady (1998) gave antihistamine drugs (for treating hay fever) to their participants
• The antihistamines had a mild sedative effect making the participants slightly drowsy
• This creates an internal psychological state different from the ‘normal’ state of being awake and alert

The participants had to learn lists of words and passages of prose and then recall the information again creating four conditions:
- Learn on drug => recall when on drug
- Learn on drug => recall when not on drug (placebo)
- Learn when not on drug (placebo) => recall when not on drug (placebo)
- Learn when not on drug (placebo) => recall when on drug

Question 13

What were the findings of the study conducted by Carter and Cassady?

Answer 13

• In the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse
• So, when the cues are absent (for example, you are drowsy when recalling information but had been alert learning) then there is more forgetting

Question 14

What are the strengths of the theory of retrieval failure?

Answer 14

• Retrieval cues can help to overcome some forgetting in everyday situations
• There is an impressive range of research that supports the retrieval failure explanation

Question 15

How can retrieval cues help overcome forgetting?

Answer 15

• Although cues may not have a very strong effect on forgetting, Baddeley suggests they are still worth paying attention to
• For instance, we have probably all had the experience of being in one room and thinking you need a certain item
• You go to the other room only to forget what it was you wanted
• But the moment you go back to the first room, you remember again
• When we have trouble remembering something, it is probably worth making the effort to recall the environment in which you learned it first
• This shows how research can remind us of strategies we use in the real world to improve our recall

Question 16

What research supports the theory of retrieval failure?

Answer 16

• The studies by Godden and Baddeley and Carter and Cassaday are just two examples because they show that a lack of relevant cues at recall can lead to context-dependent and state-dependent forgetting in everyday life
• Memory researchers Michael Eysenck and Mark Keane (2010) argue that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM
• This evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real-world situations as well as in the highly controlled conditions of the lab

Question 17

What are the limitations of the theory of retrieval failure?

Answer 17

• Baddeley (1997) argues that context effects are not very strong, especially in everyday life
• Context effects may depend substantially on the type of memory being tested

Question 18

What is Baddeley’s argument against the theory of retrieval failure?

Answer 18

• Baddeley (1997) argues that context effects are not very strong, especially in everyday life. Different contexts must be very different indeed before an effect is seen
• For example, it would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater (Godden and Baddeley)
• In contrast, learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because these environments are generally not different enough
• This means that retrieval failure due to lack of contextual cues may not actually explain much everyday forgetting

Question 19

How may context effects depend on the type of memory being tested?

Answer 19

• Godden and Baddeley (1980) 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 a list, instead of retrieving it for themselves. When recognition was tested there was no context-dependent effect, performance was the same in all four conditions
• This suggests that retrieval failure is a limited explanation for forgetting because it only applies when a person has to recall information rather than recognise it