interference

• Interference is when two memories disrupt one another. The disruption can be stronger when the memories are similar to one another. When disruption happens it can lead to one or both of the memories becoming distorted  or forgotten. Proactive interference is when old memories disrupt new memories. Retroactive interference is when new memories disrupt old memories.
• Explanations of effects of similarity

  Group 1 who had synonyms of the original list did worse on the recall which shows that inference is stronger when the memories are similar. It could be because the proactive interference in which makes the new information difficult to store due to the old information. Or it could be due to the retroactive interference which could make the new information overwrite the old information due to the similarity.
• Research on effects of similarity

  McGeoch and McDonald 1931 they got pps, and made them learn a list of words, and then had to recall them to 100% accuracy. The participants were then split off into 6 groups.

  Group 1-  synonyms of original list

  Group 2- antonyms of original list

  Group 3- unrelated to the original list

  Group 4- constant syllables

  Group 5- 3 digit numbers

  Group 6- control group

  The groups were then asked to recall the new list that they had received.
• strength research support. Coenen and Luijtelaar in 1997. The findings of this were that the participants  who had taken drugs before learning the words had a poorer recall than the participants that didn't take the drugs. Wixted in 2004 suggested that drugs prevent information reaching their part of the brain where memories are processed so new information is unable to interfere retroactively with the information initially stored . Therefore, drugs block interference. This suggests that interference is a valid explanation for forgetting and if interference is reduced so is forgetting.
•  limitation inference is temporary and can be overcome using cues. Tulving and Psotka 1971 found that inference is overcome by cues which causes the temporary loss of accessibility to the LTM. This suggests that retrieval failure is a better explanation of forgetting due to the reliance of cues for recall. This research shows that interference causes temporary loss of accessibility to materials in LTM, a finding not predicted by the interference theory.
• strength rwa. Baddeley and Hitch 1977 rugby players recall. found rugby players which had played the most games had a poorer recall compared to the rugby players who had played less games. This could be because they had more time to consolidate the games they had compared to the players who had played more games. Also it could be because of other reasons such as concussions as the players who had played  for more games are more prone to them which could lead to forgetfulness. suggests ecological validity generalisations