Retrieval Failure (forgeting) A03

Question 1

Strenght - supporting evidence

Answer 1

• The studies by Godden and Baddeley and Carter and Cassaday are just two examples of this research.
  In fact, one prominent memory researcher, Michael Eysenck (2010), goes so far as to argue that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM.
• This is a strength because supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation.
• This is especially true when the evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real-life situations as well as in the highly controlled conditions of the lab.

Question 2

Questioning context effects - limitation - baddeley 1997

Answer 2

• argues that context effects are actually not very strong, especially in real life.
• Different contexts have to be very different indeed before an effect is seen.
• For example, it would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater.
• In contrast, learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because these environments are generally not different enough.
• This is a limitation because it means that the real-life applications of retrieval failure
  due to contextual cues don’t actually explain much forgetting.

Question 3

Recall versus recognition. -godden and baddeley 1980

Answer 3

• The context effect may be related to the kind of memory being tested.
• Godden and Baddeley (1980) replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of recall - participants had to say whether they recognised a word read to them from the list, instead of retrieving it for themselves.
• When recognition was tested there was no context-dependent effect;
• performance was the same in all four conditions
  This is a further limitation of context effects because it means that the presence or
  absence of cues only affects memory when you test it in a certain way.