Retrieval failure Flashcards
What is retrieval failure?
A form of forgetting. It occurs when we dont have the necessary cues to access memory. The memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue is provided.
What is a cue?
A ‘trigger’ of information that allows us to access a memory.
What does retrieval failure say is the reason we forget?
Insufficient cues
Who researched into retrieval failure?
Tulving (1983)
What did Tulving discover?
Tulving summarised a pattern observed in findings of previous retrieval failure research. He summarised this pattern as the ‘encoding specificity Principle’ (ESP)
What did the ESP relate to?
Tulving’s summary said that if a cue is going to be helpful it has to be both: present at encoding (when we learn the material) and present at retrieval (when we are recalling it). If the cues available at encoding and retreival are different then there will be some forgetting.
Some cues are used in Mnemonics. What are Mnemonics?
Tools to help remember facts or a large amount of information. It can be a song, rhyme, acronym, image or a phrase to help remember a list of facts in a certain order
Examples:
- Never Eat Shredded Wheat
- Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain
- LTM
What are the two types of cue-dependent forgetting?
Context-dependent forgetting and state dependent forgetting
Describe context-dependent forgetting
The use of categories to help recall information - external environment cues (like weather or a place)
Describe state-dependent forgetting
The use of moods or states to help recall information - internal cues (like being upset or being drunk)
Give 2 examples of context cues
- “The clothes that Sally was wearing helped with memories of the party”
- “The smell of the operating theatre brought back memories “
Give 2 examples of state cues
- “Peter was happy when it happened”
- “Susie was drunk when she heard the story”
Who did research on context-dependent forgetting?
Godden and Baddeley (1975)
Describe Godden and Baddeley’s procedure in their experiment on context-dependent forgetting
Deep-sea divers learned and recalled word lists in one of four groups. The cues were where the learning and recall took place.
Group 1: Learnt on land and recalled on land
Group 2: Learnt on land and recalled underwater
Group 3: Learnt underwater and recalled on land
Group 4: Learnt underwater and recalled underwater
What were Godden and Baddeley’s findings and conclusions?
When the environment of learning and recall did not match (conditions 2 and 3) accurate recall was 40% lower than when they did match (conditions 1 and 4). This is because the external cues available at learning were different from the ones available at recall, leading to retrieval failure. So information was forgotten when context at recall did not match context at learning.
How much percent lower was recall when the environment at learning and recall in Godden and Baddeley’s experiment did not match?
40%
Who did research on state-dependent forgetting?
Carter and Cassady (1998)
Describe the procedure in Carter and Cassady’s experiment on state dependent forgetting
They gave antihistamine drugs (for hayfever) to their participants. They 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 a list of words and passages to remember and then recall again. There were four conditions:
1. Learn on drug - recall when on drug
2. Learn on drug - recall when not on drug
3. Learn not on drug - recall when on drug
4. Learn not on drug - recall when not on drug
What were Carter and Cassady’s findings?
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 cues are absent, eg: drowsy when recalling infomation you were alert at learning, then there is more forgetting.
Give 2 strengths of retrieval failure
- Real world application - Retrieval cues can help some forgetting in everyday situations. Forgetting what you went into a room for - always helpful to go back to the environment where the memory was made. This is a basic principle of the cognitive interview - a method of getting eyewitnesses to recall more information about crimes by using “context reinstatement”
- Research support - There is lots of research to support the retrieval failure explanation. Eysenck (2010) argues that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting in LTM. Supporting evidence increases the validity of the explanation as well as using highly controlled conditions in a lab
Give 1 limitation of retrieval failure
Context effects are not very strong in real life - Baddeley (1966) argued that the different contexts have to be very different before an effect can be seen (on land and in the water). Learning something in one room and then recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting - they are not different enough. So real-life applications of retrieval failure due to contextual cues don’t actually explain much forgetting
