evaluation

• Aim of Godden and Baddeley (1975) research? 


  to investigate the effect of environment on recall
• procedure of Godden and Baddeley research? 


  18 divers had to learn 36 unrelated words in 4 conditions:

  • learn on beach- recall on beach
  • learn on beach- recall under water
  • learn underwater- recall on beach
  • learn underwater- recall underwater
• limitation of Godden and Baddeley research?

  lacks realism- list of words, situations are too different
• strength of Godden and Baddeley research? 


  high level of control over conditions
• how is real world application a strength of retrieval failure theory? 


  retrieval cues can be used in daily life as mnemonics to help us remember order or rhymes which gives us the first letter of each word. this is a context dependant cue which can improve our memory
• findings and conclusions of Godden and Baddeley research? 


  • recall on beach: learnt on beach= 13.5, learnt underwater= 8.5
  • recall underwater: learnt on beach=8.6, learnt underwater= 11.4
  • context of where things are learnt and recalled acts as cues which supports Tulvings theory of ESP (cues have to be present at encoding and retrieval)
• how does the significance of cues support or undermine retrieval failure? 


  undermines- the scenarios in which the information is learnt and recalled has to be completely opposite to work. therefore it can’t explain everyday forgetting
• how does recall vs recognition support or undermine retrieval failure? 


  the context effect may be related to the kind of memory being tested. Godden and Baddeley replicated their study to recognise words instead of recall them. in this experiment no context dependant effect occurred which suggested retrieval failure only explains free recall not recognition