Explanations for forgetting : interference

• INTERFERENCE = An explanation for forgetting in terms of one memory disrupting the ability to recall another. This is most likely to occur when two memories have some similarity
• Retroactive interference (RI)

  Current attempts to learn something interfere with past learning. - Muller and Pilzecker (1900) first identified retroactive interference - They gave participants a list on nonsense syllables to learn for 6 mins, and then after a retention interval, asked participants to recall the lists. - Performance was reduced if the participants had been given an intervening task between initial learning and recall - The intervening task produced RI because the later task interfered with what had been previously learnt.
• Effects of similarity - McGeoch and McDonald (31) gave participants a list of 10 adjectives, once these were learned after 10 minutes they learnt a second list. - If list B was a list of synonyms of list A, recall was poor (12%) - For nonsense syllables recall was 26%, numbers recall was 37% - Shows interference is strongest the more similar the items are