Explanations to Forgetting

• Two explanations to forgetting information is due to interference and retrieval failure.
• Interference happens when one piece of information conflicts with another piece of information. When information conflicts, one memory block another and the information is forgotten. The information is distorted.
• Interference states that we have forgotten due to accessibility. The memories are there, but we cannot access them. Interference stops us from locating them in our LTM and thus we experience "forgetting".
• There are two types of interference: pro-active & retro-active.
• Pro-active interference includes old memories interfering with the new memories. E.g: Labelling a new student an old students name.
• Retro-active interference is new memories interfering with the old memories. E.G: A teacher seeing a student she taught five years ago, but cannot remember her name, due to teaching hundreds of students along the years.
• Underwood & Postman (1960) aimed to find out if new learning interferes with previous learning. They had two groups of participants: Group A - Learnt a list of words (cat-tree, candle-table) then asked to learn a second list of word pairs (cat-glass, candle-whale). Group B: Only learnt the first list of word pairs. They found that Group B's recall was more accurate than Group A's, this suggested that new learning interfered with t he ability to recall the first list - Retro-active interference.
• Retrieval failure looks at memory from the point of availability. It states that the information is in our LTM, but we cannot get it because we do not have the right cues to enable us to get it. The memory is there, just not available.
• When information is place in our memory, associated cues are stored at the same time. A cue is a trigger of information that allows us to access the memory. People forget because they have insuffcient cues.
• Tulving reviewed findings into retrieval failure and found a pattern that he called the Encoding Specificity Capacity. (ESP)
• Tulving state that if a cue is going to help us recall information, it has to be present at encoding (when we learn it) and at encoding (when we recall it). If cues are absent at retrieval, or if they do not match the cues that were present at encoding, then we forget the information.
• A strength of Interference is that there is evidence from lab experiments. McGeoch & McDonald studied retroactive interference and got participants to learn a list of words until they could recall them with 100% accuracy. They then learned a new list. They found that participants' performance on recalling the original words decreased when the second list had words that were quite similar. This was due to interference. This suggests that the explanation is valid and reliable.
• A criticism of interference is that much of the supporting evidence involves artificial stimuli. Stimuli used in most experiments are a list of words. In real life, learning lists of words is less realistic than the things we have to remember in real life, such as birthdays, people's names, and exam material. This suggests that the study lacks ecological validity and that forgetting in real-life may be different to that in the laboratory.
• Evidence of the use of meaningful cues

  The organisation of information is also an important cue for recall. This was discovered by Tulving and Pearlstone (1966) in their early study of the importance of retrieval cues. They gave their participants a list of words to learn from various categories (e.g: names of animals, weapons, professions). The participants were then asked to recall the words. Some of them were given the category names and some were not. Those who were not given the category names recalled significantly fewer words than the participants who were given them.
• Context-dependant forgetting

  Forgetting occurs if recall in the environment is different from where learning took place. (Recall better when external context matched)
• Studies supporting context-dependant forgetting

  Godden and Baddeley studied deep-sea divers who work underwater to see if training on land helped or hindered their work underwater. They found that accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions & concluded that the external cues available at learning were different from the ones available at recall and this led to retrieval failure.
• State-dependant forgetting

  Forgetting occurs if the physical or psychological state is different from when learning took place. Recall better when internal states are attached.
• Evaluation of Retrieval Failure

  One strength is that retrieval cues help overcome some forgetting in everyday situations. Although cues may not have a very strong effect on forgetting, Baddeley suggests they are still worth paying attention to. For example, forgetting something once you leave a room, and remembering when you’re in that exact position again. This shows how research can remind us of strategies we use in the real world to improve our recall.
• Evaluation of Retrieval Failure

  It is difficulty to test R.F in real life. Baddeley suggests that the different contexts have to be very different for it to work, e.g. Land/Underwater. Just changing rooms is not enough as they are not different enough, which means we have a lot of anecdotal evidence to support it. Similarly, most of the activities are artificial and are unlike real life situations. This suggests the explanations may lack external validity.
• Strength of retrieval failure explanation

  • Impressive range of research that supports it
• Studies supporting retrieval failure explanation

  • Godden & Baddeley (Context-dependent forgetting)
  • Baker et al (Context-dependent forgetting)
  • Carter & Cassaday (State-dependent forgetting)
• These studies show that lack of relevant cues at recall can lead to context-dependent and state-dependent forgetting in everyday life
• Memory researchers Michael Eysenck & Mark Keane (2010) argue that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM
• This evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real-world situations as well as in the highly controlled conditions of the laboratory
• Limitation of retrieval failure explanation


  Context effects may depend substantially on the TYPE of memory being tested
• Godden & Baddeley (1980) underwater experiment


  • Replicated but used a recognition test instead of recall
  • When recognition was tested there was no context-dependent performance effect
• This suggests that retrieval failure is a limited explanation for forgetting because it only applies when a person has to recall information rather than recognise it
• We forget because of two reasons: Decay Theory & Retrieval Failure explanation.
• Interference - retrieving similar memory instead of original memory. This is through Pro-active interference and retro-active interference.
• Cue-dependent forgetting theory

  • We rely on retrieval cues to trigger the original memory.
  • This is through external cues - features of the environment that we experience at the time we encode the memory.
  • Internal cues - our internal environment - mood, memories, and state of intoxication .
• Context-dependant forgetting - environment differs from where memory was encoded in.
• State-dependant - internal state was different from when memory needed to be retrieved.
• Underwood conducted a study recording how well participants who learnt three-word lists, to recall the last list, compared to participants who only learnt one-word lists. He found that if pps only had to learn one list, their recall was 80% accurate, but if multiple, the recall of the last list was 20%. Underwood concluded that we forget due to pro-active interference.
• Limitations:

  • Lab experiments may lack ecological validity. Items used in memory studies may not resemble the information we recall in everyday life.
• Limitation:

  • can only explain forgetting which occurs when we have two or more memories that are very similar to one another. But we often forget things even when we don't have a similar memory.
• Tulving and Postka asked participants to learn a list of words (1-6) and then recall them either through free recall, or cued recall. The researchers found that in free recall participants recalled fewer words when there were more lists to learn, suggesting that there was interference. However, they found that participants recalled more words in cued recall than in non-cued recall. Which supports cue-dependant forgetting.

  • The number of lists didn't affect recall, and the effects of interference disappeared.
• Cue-dependant forgetting: Lack of ecological validity

  • We don't often learn things under water.
  • Less relevant to explaining how we recall and forget procedural memories.