Expos for forgetting

• What is forgetting

  • Failure to retrieve memories form long term store
  • May be due to interference or retrieval failure
• What are the two types of interference

  • Proactive-Old info disrupts learning and retention of new info (old address to new address
  • Retroactive- When new info disrupts the retention of old info (new phone number forget old one)
• Effects of similarity

  • Interference is more likely to occur when words are similar
• Postman et al(12 marks)

  • Procedure- Two groups learn list of words(cat-tree, jelly moss), experimental group had to learn another list of words where second paired word was diff (cat-glass, jelly time), control group had no second list
  • Findings-Recall of first list was higher in control than experimental
  • Conclusion- Shows retroactive interference-new info disrupted old info
• Strength (support for role of similarity)

  • Strength-Research support for role of similarity
  • McGeoch + McDonald- diff groups learn diff words
  • One group- second list was synonyms of first list, another group second list- nonsense syllables (GVX, HRE)
  • Recall was higher in second list-nonsense syllables (26%)
  • Compared to list of synonyms (12%)
  • Shows interference (this case retroactive)-likely when info is similar
  • Increases validity as expo for forgetting
• Strength-Real Life Apps

  • Strength-Apps to the real world
  • Lots of research for effects of interference when people are exposed to adverts form competing brands within short time period
  • Danaher et al- recall + recognition of advert message was impaired when ppts exposed to two ads from diff brands in the same week
  • Danaher suggests to improve memory-run multiple exposures of ad in one day-reduces interference from competing advertisers
  • Strength-Understanding of interference can prevent forgetting in real life environment-shows its a useful expo of forgetting
• Weakness (artificial)

  • Limitation-Much of supporting evidence relies on artificial lab experiments
  • Much of research of theory-lab experiments
  • Interference requires special conditions-e.g. word pair stimuli-conditions are rare in day to day life + little relevance to everyday situations
  • Indicates interference-accounts for specific limited range of instances of forgetting in LTM
  • Limits ecological validity of research
  • Therefore as supporting evidence lacks validity-theory also lacks validity
• Weakness (incomplete)

  • Limitation-Not complete expo of forgetting
  • Effects may be temporary instead of permanent
  • Ceraso-found that if memory was tested 24 hours after, recognition showed spontaneous recovery(ppts remembered words they had forgotten)
  • Suggests interference happen-memories are temporarily inaccessible and not lost.
  • Interference is not a complete expo- struggles to explain how memories can be lost permanently
  • Therefore, as cant properly explain how memories are lost permanently- reduces validity