retrieval failure

• forgetting due to insufficient cues
• encoding specificity principle (esp)


  • tulving 1983
  • if a cue is to help us recall information, it must be present at encoding and retrieval
• types of cues 


  • external = context dependant learning
  • internal = state dependant learning
• external cues 


  environment, people you're with, etc
• internal cues 


  emotional state
• cues linked meaningfully will be remembered, those not linked meaningfully will be forgotten
• abernethy 1940


  context dependant forgetting - occurs when environment during recall is different from that of learning

  aim- if context dependant forgetting influenced student test results

  procedure- tested before, then weekly afterwards

  condition 1- teaching room + same teacher

  2- teaching room + different teacher

  3- different room + same teacher

  4- different room + different teacher

  findings- recall was best with condition 1 as they had the same contextual cues

  context acted as a cue to recall
• godden and baddeley 1975


  aim- effect of environment on recall

  procedure- 18 divers learn list of 36 words with 2-3 syllables

  condition 1- learn on beach, recall beach

  2- l beach, r underwater

  3- l underwater, r beach

  4- l underwater, r underwater

  findings- 1 = 13.5, 2 = 8.6, 3 = 8.5, 4 = 11.4

  learning and recalling in the same environment improved accuracy.

  those who learnt in different locations to recall, had worse recall than the other groups
• godden and baddeley 1975


  cons- limited ecological validity, as the task was artificial (36 meaningless words), meaning the findings can't be applied to other contexts
• difficult to disprove- can never prove if information went into LTM in the first place

  lack of cues? or lack of the information originally?
• golden and baddeley


  loss of control over extraneous variables

  groups that recalled and learnt in different environments were interrupted by changing

  environments

  whereas those who learnt and recalled in the same environment were not disrupted
• abernethy 1940 


  high ecological validity, as they are in their natural environment

  material is natural, so has mundane realism

  yet- didn't account for the meaning of the material and the motivation level when learning
• state dependant forgetting 


  the same mental state at learning and recall helps us remember (happy / sad / drunk etc)
• carter + cassaday (1998)


  a - effect of antihistamines

  mild sedative effect, making participants slightly drowsy, creating an internal physiological state different from the 'normal' state of being awake and alert.

  p - participants had to learn as list of words and passages of prose and recall the information

  1. learn on drug, recall on drug
  2. learn on drug, recall off
  3. learn off, recall on
  4. learn off, recall off

  f - when internal state was different for learn and recall, performance on memory test was significantly worse

  when the cues are absent then there is more forgetting
• goodwin 1969


  those that drink often, forget where they have put things when they are sober, yet could recall the locations when drunk again
• miles and hardman 1998

  those who learned a list of words while exercising on an exercise bike, remembered them better when exercising rather than at rest
• • miles and hardman
  • goodwin
  • carter + cassaday

  show that if the internal environment of learning was different to that of recall, then would forget more

  forget when not in the same state
• lab evidence and real life evidence 


  strong evidence, proves its a valid theory (godden + baddeley, carter + cassaday, eysenck 2010- retrieval failure is the main reason for forgetting in LTM)
• recall vs recognition


  godden + baddeley (1980)- replicated underwater experiment using recognition test not recall

  had to recognise word from list
• aggleton + waskett (1999)


  smell acted as context related cue

  recreating smells of underground york museum, helped people recall details of their trip to the museum more accurately even after several years