AO3

• Weakness - Research is quite artificial. Most of research is lab-based and used nonsense syllables or artificial word lists = research is low in ecological activity.
• Weakness - Interference only explains some situations of forgetting - Interference is not common, pieces of information need to similar in order for it to work and this isn't the case for everyday life = Suggests interference is relatively unimportant explanation
• Weakness - Individual differences - People with greater working memory were less susceptible to proactive interference (greater processing to counteract the effects of it) Kane and Engle
• Interference effects may be overcome using cues - Tulving and Psotka (1971) gave participants five lists of 24 words each list organised into six categories. Recall was about 70% for the first word list but this fell as participants when given more lists ( due to interference). However a cued recall test (the names of the categories as a clue). Recall rose again to about 70%.
• Real world application - Danaher et al (2008) found that both recall and recognition of an advertiser’s message were impaired when participants were exposed to two advertisements for competing brands within a week. We should enhance exposure to an advertisement on one day rather than a spread over a week thus reducing effects of interference = save money for advertisers