Interference

• What is interference?

  When two pieces of information get confused.

  Happens when information is similar
• What does retroactive mean?

  New information stops / replaces the old information

  E.g. Forget how to use your old phone because you have a new one
• What does proactive mean?

  Old information stops/replaces the new information

  E.g school change your password and give you a new one. You enter your old password rather than the new one
• One strength of interference

  Underwood - when we learn word lists we learn the first best

  • If pots only had to learn 10+ word lists, recall was 20% 24hrs later
  • If ppts only had to learn 1 word list, recall was 70% 24hrs later
• One strength of interference

  McGeoh and Mcdonald -

  • ppts given a word list (list A), then a rest break (they were likely to rehearse during this break)
  • Then given list B which was either synonyms of list A (12% recall of list A), nonsense syllables (26% recall of List A) or numbers (35% recall of list A)
  • Proves that words with similar meaning get confused
• One weakness of interference

  • The effects of interference can be seen but we don't know why it has happened
  • Weak explanation as we can't develop a solution
• One weakness of interference

  • low ecological validity
  • Most studies take place in labs and test forgetting through word lists - not reflective of real-life forgetting