Explanations of forgetting

• what is the interference theory?

  forgetting when similar material is confused in recall from LTM

  info in LTM is becoming disorted or confused by other info during coding , leading to inaccurate recall from LTM
• what are the two types of interference?

  proactive

  retroactive
• what is proactive interference?

  when past memories inhibit an individuals full potential to retain new info
• what is retroactive interference?

  when newly learned info interferes with the recall of previously learned info
• what was the aim of schmidt et al (2000) experiment?

  to assess the influence of retroactive interference upon the memory of street names learned during childhood
• what was the procedure of schmidt et al (2000)?

  took 700/1700 people from a dutch neighbourhood ro participate aged 11-79

  each were sent a questionnaire , 211 responses

  it involved a map of the neighbourhood with the street names removed , participants were also asked personal questions : how often they moved ,what year,how long they stayed there forand how often they went to the neighbourhood
• what were the findings of schmidt et al (2000)?

  the more they moved more retroactive interference occured with the street names
• what was the conclusion of schmidt et al (2000)?

  retroactive interference seems to be able to explain forgetting in some real life situations
• what was Abel and Braun (2013) study?

  participants were given a list of words some were asleep some awake during 12 hour wait time

  found that sleep reduced pro and retroactive interferrence

  sleep consolidates and fixes memories
• what are key evaluation pointsto the interference theory?

  it only explains forgetting when bits of information are similar and not every day forgetting

  the reasearch tends to be laboritary

  there is no research support for other explanations of forgetting
• what is cue dependent forgetting?

  type of forgetting based upon a faliure to rerieve the prompts that trigger recall

  only occurs when info is stillin LMT but it can't be recalled
• what is encoding specificity principle - Tulving (1973)?

  if the context of recall is different to that of coding then recall is poor
• what does the effectiveness of recall depend on? - CDF

  how overloaded it is

  how deep the processing of the cue was

  how well the cue fits the information associated with it
• what are the types of CDF?

  context dependent faliure

  state dependent faliure
• what is context dependent faliure?

  where recall occurs in a different external setting to coding
• what is state dependent faliure?

  where recall occurs in a different internal setting to coding
• what was Godden & Baddeley (1972) study into CDF?

  2 conditions ,studied context cues

  either given info on land or in water

  if given on land would recall on land or underwater

  if given underwater would recall underwater or on land

  if given and recalled in the same setting recall was successful

  40% lower when conditions don't match
• what did Abernathy (1940) find out ?

  if participants completed a test in the same room they learned the information in they performed better
• what was Overton (1972) study ?

  2 conditions studied state cues

  info was given when participants were drunk, recalled when drunk or sober

  info given when sober , recalled when sober or drunk

  when both conditions match recall was better
• what are key evaluation points of CDF?

  most studies are labatory based

  Godden & Baddeleys findings only occured when divers had free recall items learned

  supports the levels of processing theory of memory