Explanations for forgetting - Retrieval Failure

• Retrieval failure - failure to find an item of information becasue of insufficient cues
• Encoding specificity principle - if a cue is to help recall information then it has to be present at encoding & at retrieval
• Context dependent forgetting - familiar things & surroundings act as memory cues

  Study: Baddeley with scuba divers learning & recaling words on land or underwater
• State dependent forgetting - when there's a mismatch between internal state at learning & recall

  Study: Participants learnt & recalled words either drunk or sober
• Retrieval failure for forgetting AO3:

  • ✅ Lot of research support - has relevance to everyday experiences - high ecological validity
  • ❌ Retrieval cues don't always work - complex learning is less easily triggered by cues
  • ✅ Real world application - cognitive interview
  • ✅ Explains interference effects - interference is when information is available but can't be retrieved, this disappears when given cues. Learnt lists of words divided into categories, recalled better when given the categories no matter how many lists they had to learn
• Retrieval failure for forgetting AO3:

  • ✅ Lot of research support
  • ❌ Retrieval cues don't always work
  • ✅ Real world application
  • ✅ Explains interference effects