Explanations for forgetting - retrieval failure

• what is retrieval failure? occurs when we don't have the necessary cues to access memory
• who came up with the encoding specificity principle? Tulving 1983
• what did tulving state about it cues? a cue has to be 1. present at encoding and 2. present at retrieval
• what are non meaningful cues? context dependant forgetting

  state dependant forgetting
• what is context dependant forgetting? recall depends on external cue for example weather or place
• what is state dependent cue? recall depends on internal cue for example feeling upset or being drunk
• who conducted research on context dependent forgetting? Godden and Baddeley (1975)
• Procedure of Godden and Baddeleys study: Studied deep sea divers to see if training on land helped or hindered their work underwater.

  They learned a list of words and were asked to recall these words on land or underwater.
• What were the 4 conditions? Learn on land - recall on land

  Learn on land - recall underwater

  Learn underwater - recall on land

  Learn underwater - recall underwater
• What were the findings of Godden and Baddeleys study? In 2 conditions, the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched but in the other two they didn't

  Recall = 40% lower in non matching conditions
• Who conducted research on state dependant forgetting? Carter and Cassaday (1998)
• What did Carter and Cassidy 1998 do? Gave antihistamine drugs to pps (mild sedative effect that made them drowsy)

  this creates internal physiological state differences from normal state of being awake and alert

  Pps learned word lists and prose and recalled it
• What were the 4 conditions of Carter and Cassadays 1998 study? - learn on drug - recall on drug

  - learn on drug - recall not on drug

  - learn not on drug - recall not on drug

  - learn not on drug - recall on drug
• Findings of Carter and Cassadays 1998 study: when there's a mismatch between internal state of learning and recall, performance on memory test = worse

  when cues are absent, there's more forgetting
• strengths - research support: E - both studies show that a lack of relevant cues at recall can lead to context and state dependent forgetting in everyday life

  
  

  Michael Eysenk and Mark Keane

  (memory researchers)

  - argue that retrieval failure is the main reason for forgetting in LTM

  
  

  T - evidence shows us that retrieval failure occurs in real world situations
• Counterpoint to strength 'research support': P - Baddeley 1997 argues that context effects aren't very strong (especially in everyday life)

  E - different contexts must be very different before an effect is seen

  e.g

  - its hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater

  - contrastingly, learning something in one room and recalling from another is unlikely to result in much more forgetting because these environments are not different enough

  T - retrieval failure is due to lack of contextual cues so may not explain much everyday forgetting
• Strength - P - retrieval cues help to overcome some forgetting in everyday situations: E - although they may not have a strong effect on forgetting, Baddeley said we should still pay attention to them

  E.G being in one room, thinking I most go get my phone from another room, going into that room, forgetting what it was that you wanted and when you return to the first room you remember

  
  

  Recall in the environment in which you learnt it helps you to remember it

  
  

  T - shoes us how research can remind us of strategies we use in the real world to improve our recall
• Limitation - P - context effects may depend on the type of memory being tested: E - Godden and Baddeley 1980 replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of recall

  pps had to say whether they recognised a word from the list, when the recognition was tested, there was no context dependent effect

  performance was the same in all 4 conditions