MEMORY - Explanations Of Forgetting - Interference Flashcards
Forgetting meaning
Forgetting refers to the inability to access or recover information that has been previously stored in memory.
Interference theory
Forgetting occurs in LTM because two memories are in conflict. This might result in the forgetting or distorting of one memory or the other memory or both memories. This is more likely to happen if the memories are similar. There are two types of interference – proactive interference and retroactive interference.
Proactive interference
When an old memory interferes/disrupts with the recall of a new memory .e.g. a teacher struggling to learn the names of students in her new class because she’s confusing the names with students in her old class
Retroactive interference
When a new memory interferes/disrupts with an old memory e.g. a teacher forgetting the names of students in the old class after learning the names of students in the current class
Forgetting something as a result of interference is worse when memories are similar because…
1) In PI previously stored information makes new information more difficult to store.
2) In RI new information overwrites previous memories which are similar.
Research support for Interference as an explanation for forgetting: McGeoch and McDonald (1931) method
Method:
Task 1 – Six groups of Participants had to learn list of words until 100% accurate.
Task 2 – Five groups of participants had to learn a new list. (this was the interference task) The words in the new lists varied in terms of how similar they were to the original list:
Group 1 – Synonyms (words with same meaning)
Group 2 - Antonyms (words with opposite meaning)
Group 3 - Unrelated words
Group 4 - Nonsense syllables
Group 5 - 3-digit numbers
Group 6 - No new list (control condition)
Task 3 – all pps were then required to recall the first original list learned in Task 1
Research support for Interference as an explanation for forgetting: McGeoch and McDonald (1931) Results
the control group recalled the most number of words as they had no interference task.
However, for those participants who were given an interference task (another list to learn), those who had to learn numbers did best in recalling the original list of words presumably because numbers do not interfere with words. However the group who were given the list of synonyms for their interference task had the lowest recall score from the original list – this can be explained by the fact that interference occurred because the original list of words had a similar meaning to the second list of words – and as it has been shown that interference is most likely to occur when two pieces of information are similar, this study supports this notion.
