Theories of Forgetting: Retrieval Failure

• Outline the retrieval failure theory?

  People forget because of insufficient cues. When information is initially placed in memory, associated cues are stored at the same time. If these cues are not available at time of recall, it may make it appear as if you have forgotten the information but, in fact, this is due to retrieval failure - not being able to access memories that are there (i.e. available).
• The encoding specificity principle - Endel Tulving (1983)

  • Tulving reviewed research into retrieval theory and discovered a consistent pattern to the findings. He summarised this pattern into what he called the encoding specificity principle
  • If a cue is to help us recall information it has to be present at encoding (when we learn the material) and at retrieval (when we are recalling it)
  • If the cues available at encoding and retrieval are different (or of cues are entirely absent at retrieval) there will be some forgetting
• What is Godden and Baddeley's research?

  • Some cues are linked to the material to be remembered in a meaningful way e.g. the cue 'STM' may lead you to recall all sorts of information about short term memory. Such cues are used in many mnemonic techniques
  • Other cues are also encoded at the time of learning but not in a meaningful way. Two examples of this are context-dependent forgetting (external cues) and state-dependent forgetting (internal cues)
• Aim:

  To investigate the effects of context cues on recall
• Procedure:

  • Carried a study of deep-sea divers working underwater. The divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land and then were asked to recall the words either underwater or on land
  • This created 4 conditions: Learn on land - recall on land, learn on land - recall underwater, learn underwater - recall underwater, learn underwater - recall on land
• Results:

  In 2 of these conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched, in the other 2 they did not. Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions. The external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall and this led to retrieval failure. So when the cues are absent there is more forgetting.
• Conclusion:

  Information is said to be better recalled when the learning environment resembles the later retrieval environment. Godden and Baddeley showed that divers recalled words better when the recall condition matched the original learning environment, i.e. underwater or on land