Interference

• What is interference?


  When 2 pieces of information disrupt each other, resulting in forgetting one or both in some distortion of memory
• Give an example of proactive interference

  When a teacher has learned so many names in the past that she has difficulty remembering the names of her current class
• What is Retroactive interference?


  When a newer memory interferes with an older one
• What is interference?

  When 2 pieces of information disrupt each other, resulting in 1 or both being forgotten or some distortion of memory
• What is Proactuve interefernece?

  When an old memory interferes with a newer one
• What is Retroactive interference?

  When a newer memory interferes with an older one
• What was the procedure of McGeoch and McDonal’s study into interference?

  • Participants had to learn a list of 10 words until they could remember with 100% accuracy
  • They then learned a new list
  • There were 6 groups who had to learn different types of new lists: Group 1 with synonyms, group 2 received antonyms, group 3 were given words unrelated to the original ones, group 4 received consonant syllables, group 5 received 3 digit numbers and group 6 were given no new list and were the control condition
• What were the findings of McGeoch and McDonald’s study into interference?

  When the participants were asked to recall the original list pf words the most similar materials produced the worst recall.

  This shows interference is strongest when memories are similar
• What is interference?

  When 2 pieces of information disrupt each other
• Forgetting occurs in LTM becuase we can’t get access to memories even though they’re available
• What is proactive interference?

  When an older memory disrupts a newer one

  • e.g. a teacher learns many names in the past and can’t remember the names of her current class
• what is retroactive interference?

  When a newer memory disrupts an older one.

  • e.g. a teacher learns many new names this year and can’t remember the names of her previous students
• Why is interference worse when memories are similar?

  Proactive intereference

  • previously stored information makes new information more difficult to store

  retroactive interference

  • new information overwrites previous memories which are similar
• Effects of similarity study procedure

  Participants were asked to learn a list of words to 100% accuracy.

  then they were given a new list to learn.

  the new material varied in the degree to which it was similar to the old list:

  • Group 1: synonyms
  • Group 2: antonyms
  • Group 3: unrelated
  • Group 4: consonant syllables
  • Group 5: 3 digit numbers
  • Group 6: no new list
• Effects of similarity- findings and procedure

  Performance depended on the nature of the second list

  the most similar material produced the worst recall

  this shows that interference is strongest when the memories are similar
• Real-world support- A03

  Baddeley and Hitch (1977)

  • asked rugby players to recall the names of teams they played against in the last season
  • Those who played the most games had poorest recall

  this shows that interference operated in some everyday situations

  • increasing the validity of the theory
• Unrealistic- A03

  Interference in everyday situations is unusual because the necessary conditions are relatively rare.

  • e.g. similarity of memories/learning doesn’t occur often

  So most everyday forgetting may be better explained by other theories like retrieval failure
• May be overcome using cues- A03

  Tulving and Psotka (1971)

  • gave participants lists of words organised into categories
  • recall of the first list was 70% but fell with each new list
  • but when given a cued recall test recall rose again to 70%

  this shows that interference causes just a temporary los of access to material still in LTM

  • not predicted by interference theory
• Support from drug studies- A03

  Retrograde facilitation

  • Material learnt just befor taking diazepam recalled better than a placebo group 1 week later
  • the drug stopped new information reaching brain areas that process memories so it could not retroactively interfere with stored information

  this shows that the forgetting is due to interference

  • reducing the interference reduced the forgetting
• Validity issues- A03

  Lab studies of interference have tight control of confounding variables (e.g. time) so there is a clear link between interference and forgetting.

  But most research is unlike everyday forgetting

  • In everyday life we often learn something and recall it much later like when revising for exams

  This means that because research is mostly lab based it may overestimate the importance of interference as a cause of forgetting.