A01 Retrieval Failure

• Insufficient cues

  Reasons why people forget information. When information is initially placed in memory , associated cues are stored at the same time
• Retrieval failure

  If those cues are not available of time of recall, it may make it appear as if you forgotten the info but in fact, this is due to retrieval failure- not being to access memories that are not there
• Tulving's research into retrieval failure

  Tulving reviewed research into retrieval failure and discovered a consistent pattern. Summarised this pattern in what he called encoding specificity principle
• Encoding specificity principle

  If cues are to help us recall info, they have to be present at encoding and retrieval. If cues available at encoding and retrieval are different, forgetting will take place
• Linking to material

  Some cues are linked to the material-to-be-remembered in a meaningful like STM will make you think of short term memory
• Baddeley and Godden: Context-dependent class

  Study of deep sea divers working underwater. Divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land. They had to recall words either underwater or on land so there were 4 conditions
• 4 conditions on context-dependent class

  Learn on land - recall on land, learn on land - recall underwater, learn underwater - recall on land, learn underwater - recall underwater
• Results of Baddeley and Godden experiment

  In 2 of these conditions, environmental contexts matched (of learning/recall) but other 2 did not. Accurate recall was 40% lower in non-matching conditions. The external cues available at learning and recall were differing leading to retrieval failure
• Carter and Cassaday: State-dependent forgetting

  Gave antihistamine drugs (for treating hay fever) to ppts. Anti-histamines had a mild sedative effect making ppts drowsy. This created an internal physiological state different from the 'normal' state of being awake/alert
• Task for ppts: state-dependent forgetting

  Ppts had to learn lists of words and passages of prose and then recall the information. There were 4 conditions: Learn on drug - recall not on it, learn on drug - recall on it, learn not on drug - recall on it, learn not on drug - recall not on it
• Findings from state-dependent forgetting

  In conditions, there was a mismatch between internal state at learning/recall. Performance rate on the memory test was worse when cues are absent then there is more forgetting