Retrieval Failure

• what must a memory be in order to retrieve it?

  available and accessible
• what is the reason we forget according to tulving?

  insufficient cues

  • it could be because we are not in a similar situation to when the memory was originally stored
• what do cues do?

  help us to access the memory as they are a meaningful link to the memory
• what does ESP stand for?

  Encoding Specificity Principle
• who came up with ESP?

  Tulving 1983
• what is ESP?

  the greater the similarity between the encoding event and the retrieval event, the greater the likelihood of recalling the original memory
• what is cue-dependent forgetting?

  forgetting in the LTM as a retrieval failure - forgetting according to this theory is due to lack of cues
• when we learn information, what do we also encode?

  • the context (external cues)
  • the mental state (internal cues)
• what is context dependent forgetting?

  being in a different place may inhibit the memory
• what is state dependent forgetting?

  being in a different mood/state of arousal may inhibit memory
• what is category dependent forgetting?

  due to a lack of organisation
• describe the Godden and Baddeley (1975) study

  • aim was to investigate effect of environment on recall
  • 18 divers from a diving club were asked to learn lists of 36 unrelated words of 2/3 syllables
  • there were 4 conditions:
  • Learn on beach, recall on beach
  • learn of beach, recall under water
  • learn under water, recall on beach
  • learn under water, recall under water
• what were the results of the Godden and Baddeley (1975) study?

  • recall on beach, learn on beach = 13.5
  • recall under water, learn on beach = 8.6
  • recall on beach, learn under water = 8.5
  • recall under water, learn under water = 11.4
• what was the conclusion of the Godden and Baddeley (1975)?

  results showed that the context acted as a cue to recall as the participants recall more words when they learnt and recalled the words in the same environment than when they learnt and recalled the words in different environments
• what did the Godden and Baddeley (1975) show?

  the affects of context dependent forgetting
• describe the study by Carter and Cassaday (1998)?

  • gave anti-histamine drugs to their participants (have mild sedative, drowsy effect)
  • participants then had to learn lists of words and passages of text and then recall the information under 4 conditions: learn on/recall on, learn on/recall off, learn off/recall on, learn off/recall off
• what were the findings of the Carter and Cassaday (1998)?

  in conditions of mismatch between internal states at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse. When the internal cues are different between learning and recall, forgetting occurs
• what is shown in the Carter and Cassaday (1998) study?

  state dependent forgetting
• why is the Godden and Baddeley study a limitation of retrieval failure?

  • had various situational variables that weren’t controlled (e.g. time of day or location)
  • there may have also been demand characteristic issues as experiment was a repeated measures design
  • certain ethical rules were broken
• what did Baddeley (1997) argue a limitation of retrieval failure was?

  that the context effects may not be as strong in real-life (cues may not always work), the contexts have to be really different before an effect is seen, two classrooms (environment is not different enough)
• what is a limitation of the ESP?

  Its not testable, in experiences where a cue produces the recall successfully we assume that the cue must have been encoded at the time of learning. If word was not recalled, we assume cue was not encoded when information was learnt - however, there is no way of knowing whether the cue was encoded
• what is a limitation of the effects shown in Godden and Baddeleys study?

  when recognition memory is tested rather that free recall, then context-dependent effect disappears (performance was the same across all conditions)
• what is supportive evidence of retrieval failure?

  • range of research supports (is highly demonstrated in real-life situations and in highly controlled conditions of a lab)
  • Aggleton and Waskett (1999) - showed recreating smells helped participants to recall details of a trip more accurately
  • research has been useful in development of cognitive interview which is used to gain information from eyewitnesses to crime - by mentally or literally recreating scenes of a crime (real-world applications)
  • supportive research: Goodwin (drunkeness), Baker (chewing gum), Barley (stoned)