Explanations of Forgetting

• What are the two explanations for forgetting?

  Interference Theory

  Retrieval Failure Theory
• What is Interferene Theory?


  Forgetting in LTM is because you can't get access to information.

  As the info is stored at different times so makes it harder to locate

  (one memory blocks another)
• What is Proactive Interference?

  Older Memories interferes with the new
• What is Retroactice Interference?

  New Memories interferes with the old
• When is Interference worse?

  When the memories or learning is similar
• What was Schmidt et al's Study?

  Real-life study of childhood street names- PPs were given a map with the street names replaced by numbers.

  Asked to remember as many as possible.

  (Other relevant info was collected by questionnaire) - how man times they moved

  
  

  Positive association between number of times moved and number of street names forgotten.
• What was the conclusions of Schmidt's Study?

  Learning new patterns of street names when moving makes recalling older patterns more difficult.

  
  

  Retroactive interference effects recall in real-life situations
• What was the Evaluation of this Study?

  Extraneous Variables - confounded results

  Methodolgy used shows that its possible to research RI in real-life situations.
• What was Baddeley and Hitch's Study?

  Asked Rugby Players to try and remember the names of the teams they had played so far in that season week by week
• Positive Evaluation Points of Interference Theory?

  Evidence from lab studies consistently demonstrates interference

  Real-life studies supports it

  The effects of interference may be overcome using cues
• Negative Evaluation Points of Interference Theory?

  Only really explains forgetting when two sets of info are similar.

  Most are lab experiemnts- lacks EV

  Don't clearly identify the cognitive processes
• What is Retreival Theory?

  When you don't have the necessary cues to access memory. (Cue-dependent forgetting)
• What two types of forgetting are in Cue-dependent forgetting?

  Context-dependent Faliure

  State-dependent Faliure
• What is Context-dependent forgetting?

  Where recall occurs in an external setting to coding
• What was the divers study to explain context-dependent faliure? (Godden and Baddeley)

  This study looked at how external cues present at the time of encoding affected memory recall.

  Divers learnt a list of words either underwater or on land- thren asked to recall the words either on land or water.

  Four groups-

  Land- Land

  Land- Water

  Water- Land

  Water- Water
• What was the findings for the divers study? (Godden and Baddeley)

  Recall 40% lower in non-matching conditions

  External cues available at learning were different from recall: there was a lack of cues.
• What is State-dependent faliure?

  Where recall occurs in different internal setting to coding.
• What was the study looking at SDF? (Overton)

  Got PPs to learn material when either drunk or sober.

  Found that PPs recall was worse when they were different internal state than at coding.

  Supports explanation
• Positive Evaluation Points for Retrieval Faliure? (CDF)

  Loads of research supporting the theory- Goddan and Baddeley.

  Has good real- life applications
• Negative Evaluation Points for Retrieval Faliure? (CDF)

  Baddeley argues that context effects aren't as strong in real life

  Most are laboratory based- lacks EV
• What is the Encoding Specifity Principle (ESP)?

  Tulving reviewed research into retrieval faliure and concluded that cues can help us recall information if the cue was present at encoding and retrieval.

  The closer the retrieval cue is to the original cue, the better the cue works.

  It can't be tested fully.