Interference Theory

• Proactive interference

  When old memories/learnings interfere with new ones

  i.e. driving left on holiday in Europe
• Retroactive interference

  When new memories/learnings interfere with old ones

  i.e. driving right in the UK after going on holiday
• Interference theory


  We forget because something interferes with what we are trying to remember
• Effects of Similarity 


  Interference is worse when the memories/learnings are similar
• Retroactive interference experiment (McGeoch & McDonald 1931)


  6 group of p's learned a list until they could remember them 100% accurately then they learned a new list

  group 1 - synonyms

  group 2 - antonyms

  group 3 - words unrelated to the original ones

  group 4 - nonsense syllables

  group 5 - three-digit numbers

  group 6 - no new list

  Results: synonyms - lowest amount of recall (mean 1.25)

  none - highest amount of recall (mean 4.5)

  
• Real life studies of interference

  Baddeley & Hitch 1977

  • They asked rugby players to try remember the names of the teams they had played so far in the season
  • Accurate recall did not depend on how long ago the matches took place but the number of games they had played in the meantime
  • Proves that Interference with recall doesn't mainly depend on time, opposing the interference theory
  • This study shows that the NUMBER OF SIMILAR EVENTS have more of an impact on the amount forgotten, than the passing of time
• Interference and Cues

  Tulving & Psotka (1971)

  • gave p's a list of words organised into categories
  • first list recall 70%, progressively gets worse as they learnt each additional list (proactive interference)
  • after telling them the category names, recall was back up to 70%
  • result: Interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility to material that is still in the LTM, this can be overcome by cues
  • Interference theory would say the information was lost but it still remains