AO3

• P: There is empirical evidence that supports the main assumptions of the interference theory.

  E: McDonald & McGeoch (1931) experimented with participants giving them lists of adjectives to remember (List A). After learning List A they were given List B to learn. Recall was found to be poorest when List B was a list of synonyms (similar words) of List A (12% recall) compared to when the two lists were  not related (26% recall).

  E: This suggests that forgetting is more likely to occur when the materials are similar. 

  L: Which supports the interference theory of forgetting.  
• P: Having an understanding of how individuals can forget due to interference can be useful in some fields of work, such as advertising.

  E: Danaher (2008) found when people were exposed to adverts from competing brands within a short time frame, participants struggled to recognise the brand or their message. Considering the millions spent on advertising this presents a big problem but also provides marketers practical ways to overcome this.
• E: This means that advertisers can implement effective strategies when creating marketing campaigns for the products they are trying to promote. If they have a good understanding of how to minimise consumers forgetting their product, then they can create effective adverts which lead to greater product sales.

  L : This shows how the interference theory is useful as it can be applied to real world scenarios thus increasing the validity of the theory.
• P: There is evidence to suggest that some people are less affected by proactive interference compared to others.

  E: Kane et al (2000) found individuals with bigger working memory spans were less susceptible to proactive interference when testing a recall, using three word lists, compared to individuals deemed to have smaller working memory spans.
• E: This suggests that some people are less affected by proactive interference than others.

  L: This, therefore, decreases the validity of the interference theory as an explanation of forgetting, as it does not take into consideration individual differences.