proactive and retroactive interference

• What is interference theory?

  Forgetting caused by competing memories.
• When is interference most likely to happen?

  When the two pieces of information are similar
• What is proactive interference?

  Old information interferes with learning new information.
• Give an example of proactive interference.

  Remembering old phone number instead of new one.
• What is retroactive interference?

  Learning new information interferes with recalling old information.
• Give an example of retroactive interference.

  Difficulty recalling old phone number after learning new one.
• What is the purpose of the lab experiment conducted by Underwood and Postman?

  To investigate the effects of interference on memory recall.
• How were the participants divided into groups?

  Group A and Group B.
• What task did Group A perform?

  Learning a list of word pairs and then learning a second list with different second paired words.
• What task did Group B perform?

  Learning the first list of word pairs only.
• Which group had more accurate recall of the first list?

  Group B.
• How does the evidence from the experiment support interference theory?

  Learning the second list made it harder to recall the first list.
• What limitation does the study have?

  It is an artificial task that may not reflect real-world memory usage.
• What does the author suggest about interference and forgetting in the real world?

  Interference may not fully explain forgetting in everyday settings.
• What did Baddeley and Hitch (1977) study?


  Recall of team names by rugby players.
• What did Baddeley and Hitch find in their study?

  Players who played more games forgot more due to interference.
• How does interference theory explain forgetting in the study?

  Playing new teams overwrites memory of previous teams.
• What does the research by Underwood & Postman demonstrate?

  Interference with an artificial task.
• What does the research by Baddeley & Hitch demonstrate?

  Interference can explain forgetting in real-world situations.
• What are the limitations of interference research?

  It only explains forgetting of similar information.