Retrieval failure - A03

Question 1

What are strengths of retrieval failure?

Answer 1

• P: Strength = retrevial cues can help someone forgetting in everyday situations
• E: Cues may not have a strong effect on forgetting, Baddeley suggests they are still worth paying attention to. E.g when you forget what you walked into a room for
• E: When we have trouble remembering something it’s probably worth making the effort to recall the environment in which you learnt it first
• L: Shows research can remind us of strategies we use in the real world to improve our recall
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• P: Strength = Lots of research that supports the retreival failure explanation
• E: Godden & Baddeley and Carter & Cassady: 2 examples - They show the lack of relavent cues at recall can lead to context-dependent and state-dependent forgetting in everyday life
• E: Gysenech and Keane (1980): Retrieval failure is the main reason for forgetting in LTM
• L: Retrieval failure occurs in real world situations as well as in the highly controlled conditions of the lab

Question 2

What is a limitation of retrieval failure?

Answer 2

• P: Limitation = context effects may depend substantially on the type of memory being tested
• E: Godden & Baddeley (1980): Replicatde underwater experiment - used a recognition test not recall. PPs had to say whether they recognised a word read to them from a list instead of retrieving it themsleves
• E: When recognition was tested there was no context dependent effect. Performance the same in all conditions
• L: Suggests that RF is a limited explanation - only applies whnen a person had to recall information rather than recognise it