explanations for forgetting - retrieval failure

• what is retrieval failure?

  forgetting due to a lack of cues
• what is a cue?


  a trigger of information that allows us to access a memory

  --> has to be present at the time of encoding and present at retrieval to be effective
• what is context-dependent forgetting?

  recall depends on external cue (e.g weather or a place)
• what is state-dependent forgetting?

  recall depends on internal cue (e.g. feeling upset, being drunk)
• who investigated context-dependent forgetting?

  Godden and Baddeley
• what was the procedure?


  - studied deep sea divers to see how training on land affected underwater work

  - the divers had to learn a list of words either underwater or on land and then had to recall the list either underwater or on land

  - created 4 conditions:

  learn on land - recall on land

  learn on land - recall undewater

  learn underwater - recall on land

  learn underwater - recall underwater
• what were the findings


  accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions -->external cues available at learning were different from ones available at recall -->leads to retrieval failure
• who investigated state-dependent forgetting?

  Carter and Cassaday
• what was the procedure?

  - gave (mildly drowsy) antihistamines to participants to some of the participants who all had to learn a list of words --> drugs made them less alert / not their 'normal' internal state

  four conditions:

  1. learn on drugs - recall on drugs

  2. learn on drugs - recall off drugs

  3. learn off drugs - recall on drugs

  4. learn off drugs - recall off drugs
• what were the findings?

  in conditions where there was a change in internal state between coding and recall, memory was significantly worse
• name one strength of retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting

  RESEARCH SUPPORT:

  - research from Godden + Baddeley and Carter + Cassiday show how lack of cues can lead to both context + state dependant forgetting --> shows retrieval failure occurs in real-world situations as well as lab controlled experiments
• name one limitation of retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting

  DEPENDS ON THE TYPE OF MEMORY BEING TESTED:

  - Baddeley + Godden recreated their underwater experiment but instead of asking divers to recall info they were asked if they recognised the word -->when recognition was tested there was no context dependent forgetting + performance was the same in all four settings

  --> suggests that retrieval failure is a limited explanation for forgetting as it only applies when a person is asked to recall not recognise