Forgetting

    Cards (20)

    • Define Encoding Specificity Principle (by Tulving 1983)

      For a cue to help us recall information, it has to be present at encoding and at retrieval.
    • What are the three types of cues according to retrieval failure theory?
      Meaningful links, external cues and internal cues
    • What are the two types of forgetting based on retrieval failure theory?
      Context-dependent forgetting, state-dependent forgetting
    • Who investigated context-dependent forgetting?
      Godden and Baddeley
    • What were the four conditions of Godden and Baddeley's 1975 study on context-dependent forgetting?

      Learned on land - recalled on land
      Learned on land - recalled underwater
      Learned underwater - recalled on land
      Learned underwater - recalled underwater
    • What was the finding and conclusion of Godden and Baddeley's 1975 study on context-dependent forgetting?

      When conditions matched, recall was 40% higher than when conditions did not match, which supports Tulving's ESP.
    • Who investigated state-dependent forgetting?
      Carter and Cassaday 1998
    • What were the four conditions of Carter and Cassaday's study into state-dependent forgetting?
      Learned on antihistamine - recalled on antihistamine
      Learned on antihistamine - recalled without antihistamine
      Learned without antihistamine - recalled on antihistamine
      Learned without antihistamine - recalled without antihistamine
    • What were the findings and conclusion of Carter and Cassaday's 1998 study into state-dependent forgetting?

      Matching states produced significantly higher recall rates compared to non-matching states, supports Tulving's ESP
    • Who is the key supporting researcher for retrieval failure theory?
      Baker et al. 2004: studied four states like Carter and Cassaday, but with chewing gum. Found the same results, supporting retrieval failure theory.
    • What limitation does Baddeley suggest about the application of context-dependent forgetting?
      The change of context has to be significant in order to make any observable difference: a simple room change is unlikely to affect results much.
    • How did Godden and Baddeley's 1980 repeat of their original experiment limit its results?

      Same experiment but asked recognition questions rather than recall, and recognition was consistent across all conditions: limits application of results as it only applies to certain types of recall.
    • How does the idea of circular reasoning limit the ESP and retrieval failure theory?
      It cannot be reliably tested as it is impossible to prove whether a cue was involved in the encoding of a memory: if a cue is present at recall it can only be assumed that it was present at encoding but cannot be proved.
    • What are the two types of forgetting based on interference theory?
      Proactive interference: old affects new
      Retroactive interference: new affects old
    • Who investigated the effects of memory similarity on recall?
      McGeoch and McDonald 1931
    • What were the six lists of words given to participants (other than the original list) in McGeoch and McDonald's 1931 study into memory similarity?

      Synonyms, antonyms, unrelated words, nonsense syllables, three digit numbers, no list
    • What were the findings and conclusion of McGeoch and McDonald's 1931 study into memory similarity?

      Recall was worst with the synonyms, and improved respectively, suggests interference is most likely to occur when memories are similar.
    • How does the lab environment support McGeoch and McDonald's 1931 study into memory similarity?

      Countless lab studies have been done on interference theory, and because lab experiments control extraneous variables, a more trustworthy correlation can be drawn, as well as allowing accurate reproductions of the experiments to be held.
    • How does the idea of artificial stimuli limit the findings of McGeoch and McDonald 1931?

      Memorising lists of words is unrealistic in real life, which makes the results hard to generalise.
    • How does Baddeley and Hitch 1977 support interference theory?

      Asked rugby players to recall the names of teams they had played against, found that accurate recall was dependent on how many games they had played and not the length of time between games. Being a field experiment, it adds ecological validity to the theory.