retrieval failure

• Theory suggests people forget due to insufficient cues
• When information is placed in memory, associated cues are stored at the same time
• Retrieval failure is not able to access the memories available
• Tulving reviewed research into retrieval failure and summarized the pattern found in what he called the encoding specificity principle. This states that if a cue is to help us recall information it has to be present at encoding, when we learn material, and at retrieval, when we recall.
• If cues at encoding and recall are absent there will be some forgetting
• There can be meaningful cues that you have purposively associated with material during learning, to aid retrieval.
• There are other cues which are encoded at the same time as the information, which are accidental. These fall into two categories: cues from the environment, context dependent forgetting, and cues cues from our internal state, state dependent forgetting
• State dependent forgetting - baddeley Et Al carried out a study on scuba divers and arranged for them to learn a list of words on dry land or under water. They were then tested on land or under water. It was found accurate recall was lower in non matching conditions. It was concluded that it was due to lack of cues from the environment to help trigger recall
• Context dependent forgetting - research shows even imagining the same context aids memory. Three groups of participants learnt words in a distinctive basement room. The next day participants were then tested in the same room, different room or asked to imagine themselves in the basement. Recall from the group in a different context was lower than the same context group. The participants asked to imagine the basement recalled the same amount as those actually in the same context.
• State dependent forgetting - research demonstrates that an absence of cues from a person's internal emotional state can lead to forgetting. Research found that if happy when learning materials participants were less accurate in recall when tested in a sad mood, than those tested in a happy mood. This finding has been shown in physiological states e.g. when drunk or under influence of drugs, participants are less able to recognise the learned information in a different states compared to participants who were then in the same state as during learning.