Memory- Retrievel Cues Flashcards
Interference theory
Interference occur when one set of information competes with another.
THE MORE SIMILAR THE MATERIAL THE MORE INTERFERENCE
TWO types of interference:
Proactive- when previous informations interferes with new learning.
Research support-
Wickens gave participants 4 trials using peterson and petersons duration experiment. The stimuli in first 3 trials was the same but 4th trial was number based. He found that performance gradually declined in trials 1-3 but the number based trial remained at 100% recall. He believed that because the material was different and easier to remember. The decline in performance in trials 1-3 shows evidence for proactive interferece as old inflrmation interfered with new(CAN BE USED AS EVALUATION)
Retroactive- when recent informations interfered with old
Research support:
Baddeley and hitch investigated interferemce effects in an everyday setting of rugby players recalling the names of opponents they played before. Some players played in all of games and some missed games due to injury. They found that players who had played most games had poor recall(most interference). The recent teams they had played before interfered with the previous teams played against. Shows real life effect of retroactive interference. CAN BE USED AS EVALUATION
THE DEGREE OF FORGETTING IS GREATER WHEN MEMORIES ARE SIMILAR
Evaluation
Lots of research support:
Interference is one of the most consistently demonstrated findings in psychological research. Baddeley and hitch’s study of recalling rugby games players is difficult than learning lots of new players. This more recent teams they had played against interferred with previously played players.
Application to real life:
One strenght of interference theory is that has practical application. Chandler found that students who study similar subjects ie psychology and sociology at same time, experience interference and are likely to forget information. So similar subjects revised one after another should be avoided and instead revise effectively to avoid confusion. This is a strength because it help avoid forgetting and improve recall in real life.
Artificiality:
One issue of interference thepry is it comes from artificial lab experiment and often used rather artificial list of words. Thus findings may not relate to everyday uses of memory. In addition participants may lack motivation to remember the lists in such studies and allows stronger interference. Ecological validity therefore is questionable as interference only accounts to specific range of forgetting in LTM. This counter argument is that interference effects have been observed in everyday situations.
