memory: explanations for forgetting > interference Flashcards
What is interference in the context of memory?
Forgetting because one memory blocks another, causing one or both memories to be distorted or forgotten
What are the two types of interference?
- Proactive interference
- Retroactive interference
What is proactive interference?
You can’t remeber new memories
Forgetting occurs when older memories disrupt the recall of newer memories.
What increases the degree of forgetting in interference?
The memories being similar.
Give an example of proactive interference.
Calling your new boyfriend your ex boyfriend’s name.
What is retroactive interference?
You can’t remember old memories
Forgetting occurs when newer memories disrupt the recall of older memories.
Give an example of retroactive interference.
Recalling your new address instead of your old one.
outline the study on interference
McGeoch and McDonald experimented with the effects of similarity of materials.
They gave participants a list of 10 adjectives (list A). Once these were learned there was then a resting interval of 10 minutes during which they learned list B, followed by recall:
If list B was a list of synonyms of List A, recall was poor (12% recall)
If list B was nonsense syllables this had less effect (26% recall)
If list B was numbers this had the least effect (37% recall).
what can we conclude from the study
interference is strongest the more similar the items are
Only interference, rather than decay, can explain such effects.
The reason similarity affects recall may be due to proactive interference. Previously stored information makes new similar information more difficult to store. Alternatively it could be due to retroactive interference, new information overwrites previous similar memories because of the similarity
AO3: individual differences
There is evidence that some people are less affected by proactive interference than others
Kane and Engle demonstrated that individuals with a greater working memory span were less susceptible to proactive interference. The researchers tested this by giving participants three word lists to learn. Those participants with low working memory spans showed greater proactive interference when recalling the second and third lists than did participants with higher spans.
WEAKNESS because it suggests people respond differently to proactive interference and it does not affect everyone in the same way. As a result there must be a third variable affecting forgetting
AO3: real life application
One strength is that there is evidence of interference effects in more everyday situations
Baddeley and Hitch asked Rugby players to recall the names of the teams they had played against during a rugby season. The players all played for the same time interval (over one season) but the number of intervening games varied because some players missed matched due to injury
Players who played the most games showed the most interference as they had the poorest recall
STRENGTH as this shows that interference can operate in at least some real-world situations, thereby increasing the validity of this theory
AO3: incomplete explanation
Interference only explains some situations of forgetting.
While interference effects do occur in everyday life, they don’t occur that often. Special conditions are required for interference to lead to forgetting: the two memories need to be quite
similar. It is for this reason that interference is considered to be a relatively unimportant explanation for everyday forgetting.
McGeoch and McDonald shows that interference is strongest the more similar the items are.
WEAKNESS as interference theory is a limited explanation that cannot explain all aspects of forgetting, very few memories are similar, therefore there must other factors that cause forgetting
AO3: cues
interference is temporary and can be overcome by using cues
Tulving and Psotka gave participants lists of words organised into categories, one list at a time (participants were not told what the categories were). Recall averaged about 70% for the first list, but became progressively worse as participants learned each additional list, showing proactive interference. By the end of the procedure the participants were given a cued recall test. They were told the names of the categories. Recall rose again to about 70%
WEAKNESS as this shows that interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility to material that is still in LTM. A cue is needed to access that memory. This means the theory is not complete or accurate
