Evaluation of interference

• Strength: supporting evidence from McGeoch and McDonald. Ppts were given a list of 10 words to remember. Then given another list that was made up of:

  1. Synonyms of the originals
  2. nonsense syllables
  3. 3 digit numbers

  Ppts had to recall the original 10 words. % of words recalled was: synonyms, 12%, nonsense syllables, 26% and numbers, 37%.

  This showed that interference was strongest when the memories were similar.
• Limitation: artificial nature of laboratory experiments.

  The stimuli used in most experiments involves word lists and these do not reflect all of the things learnt in real world settings. This means that the explanation may have low ecological validity as it only explains forgetting in lab settings rather than in everyday life.
• Limitation: there are other explanations for forgetting.

  • retrieval failure
  • repression

  This suggests that interference cannot be considered a complete explanation for forgetting.