AO3

• Issues with research

  P: However, the supporting research has been criticised for lacking external validity.

  E: For instance, Godden & Baddeley’s research was a lab based research which required pts having to memorise and recall words in conditions such as on land and underwater.

  E: This suggests that the results obtained are less likely to be generalised beyond the lab setting, to the ‘real world’, because it is unlikely that in the ‘real world’ individuals will learn and recall information in the conditions used within this experiment.
• Issues with research (2)

  L: Therefore, it is not appropriate to generalise the results of this study beyond the artificial setting of the lab.
• Supporting research

  P: There is a wealth of empirical research support for the retrieval failure theory of forgetting.

  E: Goodwin conducted a laboratory experiment using male volunteers who took part in one condition each. They carried out an independent groups design. Participants were put into one of four conditions: learn words sober - recall words sober, learn words sober - recall words drunk, learn words drunk - recall words drunk, learn words drunk - recall words sober.
• Supporting research (2)

  E: Participants were all presented with a list of words, whilst either drunk or sober. 24 hours later they were then asked to recall the words on the list whilst either drunk/sober. They found that the highest recall occurred when the initial state during learning, matched the state during recall.

  E: This suggests that the effects of context cues and state cues are important for recall.

  L: This, therefore, supports the main assumptions of the theory.
• Recall vs. Recognition

  P: The context effect may be related to the kind of memory being tested.

  E: Godden and Baddeley(1980) replicated their underwater study with a recognition test instead of a recall test. Participants had to say whether they recognised a word read to them from the list, instead of retrieving it for themselves.
• Recall vs. Recognition (2)

  E: When recognition was tested there was no context-dependent effect - performance was the same in all four conditions.

  L: This is a further limitation of context effects because it means that the presence of absence of cues only affects memory when you test it in a certain way.