absence of cues

• encoding specificity principle 


  tulving and thompson
• context dependent 


  occurs when environmental cues are missing where recall depends on external cues such as the weather
• state dependent failure

  occurs when an individuals emotional state is different when trying to recall information
• context dependent study 


  Godden and Baddley, divers study
• state dependent study 


  Carter and Cassidy, Anti histamines study
• type of forgetting 


  when information cannot be retrieved because of insufficient cues to trigger memory
• two types of retrieval failure due to absence of cues

  • context dependent failure

  • state dependent failure
• godden and baddley study result

  the words learned underwater were better recalled underwater and words learned on land were better recalled on land
• context depending forgetting evaluation

  + results of study suggest that environment cues aid memory recall

  _ godden and baddley didn’t control many other variables

  _ context examined in their study is extreme and provides little insight into context dependent forgetting in everyday life
• cater and cassidy study

  • participants were tasked with learning a list of words and excerpts from a text and then asked to recall the information at a later point within 4 conditions
• carter and cassidy study results

  in the conditions where the learning and recalling state matched memory was improved, consequently when the psychological state of participants was different recall was significantly poorer
• stat dependent forgetting evaluation

  + research support

  _ issues with determining a cause and effect relationships with retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting
• godden and baddley study

  • 18 participants divided into four conditions
  • each participant took part in all four conditions over four days
  • presented with 38 words and instructed to write all the words they could remember in any order
• counterpoint to baddley and godden study

  • baddley argues context effects are not very strong and that contexts have to be very different for an effect to be seen
  • e.g. it would be hard to find an environment different from land as underwater
  • in contrast learning in one room and recalling in another is unlikely to result in too much forgetting because these environments are not different enough
  • this means retrieval failure may not actually explain much forgetting
• retrieval failure real world application

  • in cognitive interview the police often use retrieval failure to help witnesses remember more accurate details by reconstructing the scene emotionally and physically
  • therefore retrieval failure had a positive impact on policing and has contributed to many offenders being brought to justice
• tolving and psotka study

  • found participants were given cued recall, the effect of interference disappeared, participants recalled 70% of words regardless of how many lists had been given
  • shows that information is there but cannot be retrieved due to interference
  • suggesting interference is a much more plausialbe explanation of forgetting than retrieval failure
• what is the encoding and specificity principle

  if a cue is going to helpful it must be present at the time of coding and at the time of retrieval, if this is not the case forgetting will occur