Retrieval failure

• Encoding specificity principle


  • tulving and thomason explained this effect in terms of encoding specificity principle
  • Recall is better if the retreival context is similar to the encoding context
  • Any cues present at the time of coding must be present at the time of retrieval (the closer it is to the original the more useful it will be)
• Context dependent forgetting

  • Recall depends on external cues
  • Location, weather, sights + sounds
• Abernethy

  • Arranged for a group of students to be tested
  • Group 1, same room same teacher
  • Group 2, same room diff teacher
  • Group 3, diff room same teacher
  • Group 4, diff room diff teacher
  • Those tested by their teacher in their classroom performed best - familiar objects acted as cues
• State-dependent cue

  • Recall depends on internal cues
  • e.g mental state, feelings or an altered state (e.g being drunk)
• Goodwin


  • asked male volunteers to remember a list of words when either drunk or sober
  • they were asked to recall after 24 hours - findings show that info learnt drunk is more available when in the same state
• Tulving and Pearlstone


  • Participants instructed to remember 48 words in 12 sets of 4 words and were told they would not be asked to recall headings of categories
  • The control group were asked to recall as many as they could
  • The experimental group were given headings as cues
  • Control group recall was 40% and experimental group was 60%
• Tulving and Psotka

  • Demonstrated that apparent inference effects are actually due to the absence of cues when they come to recall
  • Proved that info is there but cannot be retrieved and shows retrieval failure is a more important explanation of forgetting than inference.
• Strengths

  • a lot of research supporting the theory - including lab, field and natural experiments - applicable to real life
  • Tulving and pearlstone - proved that you can improve memory through the use of mnemonics or category headings
• Retrieval failure is a type of forgetting where information is lost because it cannot be accessed from long term memory.
• Weaknesses

  • retrieval cues don’t always work - info you are learning is a lot more than just cues
  • word lists are often used in research - irl more complex info is learned
  • Cues explain everyday forgetting but not all
  • The danger of circularity
• Danger of circularity

  Nairne - cues do not cause retrieval they are just associated

  Baddely - the encoding specificity principle is impossible to test because it is circular. If a stimulus leads to the retrieval of a memory it must have been encoded in the memory