Retrieval Theory Of Forgetting Flashcards
What is retrieval failure
We forget because we have insufficient cues, when info is initially encoded in memory associated cues are stored at the same time
What are context cues
External cues from the environment that you learnt the information in, if these are not present if learning and recall environment are different then context-dependent forgetting occurs
What are internal state cues
Cues from the internal state that you learnt the information in, if internal state is different in learning to recall then state-dependent forgetting occurs
What are category cues
You categorise things as you learn them eg by the letter they begin with and if these cues are present or you are prompted with them you are more likely to recall the memoru
Expand on strength that the theory has real-life application
-teachers can improve students recall in tests by teaching exam content in exam situations or when in an exam students can imagine a scene of a classroom to help recall
-means the theory had practical application within the education system as it can help to improve educational attainment which supports the ecological validity of the theory
Expand on strength that the theory has research support from Godden and Baddeley
-divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land and then asked to either recall words in the same or different context to that which they learned it in, found recall 40% lower in the non-matching conditions
-supports validity of claims that context cues improve recall
H: usually our contexts are not so different as underwater and on land in everyday life meaning the influence of context may be less significant in real life
Expand on limitation that the ESP cannot be genuinely tested and leads to a form of circular reasoning
-we must make inferences about whether a person has truly encoded a cue as making the assumption that successful recall means cue encoded while unsuccessful recall means not encoded cue/ cannot scientifically test whether cues have been encoded
-means concept is unfalsifiable which challenges validity as cannot be tested to be proven right or wrong
Outline experiment by Carter and Cassaday
-half of the participants given anti-histamine drugs (resulting in ppts being slightly drowsy) which creates an internal physiological state different from normal of being awake and alert, then recall either on off drug
What did Tulving say
Reviewed research into retrieval failure and summarised this as the Encoding Specificity Principle (ESP) which states that cues present at the time of learning must also be present at recall otherwise not all information will be recalled
