retrieval failure

• what is retrieval failure?

  a form of forgetting in which we don’t have the necessary cues to access memory - the memorys available but not accessible unless a suitable cues provided
• what are cues?


  triggers of info that are encoded at the time of learning
• what is retrieval failure based on?

  the encoding specificity principle (tulving)
• when is memory most effective according to retrieval failure?

  when into present at the time of encoding is also present at the time or retrieval
• when does forgetting occur in retrieval failure?

  when the encoding and retrieval situations are different
• what are meaningful cues?


  cues that have meaningful links to the info that’s to be remembered
• what are some examples of meaningful/semantic cues?

  mnemonics, first letters of words
• when is forgetting more likely to occur with meaningful cues?


  when we don’t have the meaningful cues
• what are context-dependent forgetting?

  external cues like the environment we were in at the time of learning/encoding can act as triggers for the material learnt
• what are some examples of context-dependent cues?

  weather, smell, taste, sound, other people, location
• when does context-dependent forgetting occur?

  when we’re in a diff environment to when we learnt the material
• what is state-dependent forgetting?

  internal cues such as the mental/emotional state we were in at the time of learning can act as triggers for the material learnt
• what are some examples of state-dependent cues?

  drowsy, drunk, anxious, happy, upset, drugged
• when does state-dependent forgetting occur?


  when we’re in a different state to when we learnt the material