A03

• Real-world interference


  • There is evidence of interference effects in more everyday situations
  • Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to recall the names of the teams they had played against during a rugby season
  • Players who played the most games (most interference for memory) had the poorest recall
  • The study shows that interference can operate in at least some real-world situations, increasing the validity of the theory
• Real-world interference


  • There is evidence of interference effects in more everyday situations
  • Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to recall the names of the teams they had played against during a rugby season
  • Players who played the most games (most interference for memory) had the poorest recall
  • The study shows that interference can operate in at least some real-world situations, increasing the validity of the theory
• The conditions necessary for interference to occur are relatively rare
• 2 memories (or sets of learning) have to be fairly similar in order to interfere with each other
• This may happen occasionally in everyday life (e.g. if you were to revise similar subjects close in time), but not often
• Interference


  Temporary limitation that can be overcome by using cues (hints or clues to help us remember something)
• Tulving and Psotka experiment


  1. Gave PPs lists of words organised into categories, one list at a time

  2. PPs were not told what the categories were

  3. Recall averaged about 70% for the first list

  4. Recall became progressively worse as PPs learned each additional list (proactive interference)

  5. PPs were given a cued recall test at the end - they were told the names of the categories

  6. Recall rose again to about 70%
• This shows that interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility to material that is still in LTM, a finding not predicted by the interference theory
• Retrograde facilitation


  • When a list of words was learned before the drug diazepam was taken, later recall was better than placebo
  • The drug prevented new information (experienced after taking the drug) reaching parts of the brain involved in processing memories, so it could not interfere retroactively with information already stored
• Reducing interference


  Reduces forgetting
• When a list of words was learned under the influence of the drug diazepam, recall one week later was poor (compared with a placebo control group)
• This finding shows that forgetting can be due to interference
• Validity issues: Most studies supporting interference theory are lab-based, so researchers can control variables (e.g. the time between learning the material and recalling it). Control over confounding variables also means studies show a clear link between interference and forgetting. But these studies use artificial materials and unrealistic procedures. In everyday life we often learn something and recall it much later (e.g. revising for exams) - external validity?
• When we have trouble remembering something


  It is probably worth making an effort to recall the environment in which you learned it first
• This shows how research can remind us of strategies we use in the real world to improve our recall
• Retrieval failure explanation


  • Impressive range of research that supports it
  • Lack of relevant cues at recall can lead to context-dependent and state-dependent forgetting in everyday life
• Studies supporting retrieval failure explanation


  • Godden and Baddeley
  • Carter and Cassaday
• Godden and Baddeley study


  1. Divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land

  2. Recalled the words either underwater or on land

  3. Accurate recall was 40% lower in non-matching conditions

  4. Concluded that the external cues available at learning were different from the ones available at recall and this led to retrieval failure
• Carter and Cassaday study


  1. Gave antihistamine drugs (treating hay fever) to their PPs, creating a mild sedative effect

  2. PPs had to learn a list of words and then recall the information again

  3. In the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse
• Memory researchers like Eysenck and Keane argue that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM
• The evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real-world situations as well as in the highly controlled conditions of the lab
• Counterpoint:

  Baddeley argues that context effects are actually not very strong, especially in everyday life. Different contexts have to be very different before an effect is seen. For example, it would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater (Godden and Baddeley). In contrast, learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because these environments are generally not different enough. This means that retrieval failure due to lack of contextual cues may not actually explain everyday forgetting.
• Recall


  Retrieving information from memory
• Recognition


  Identifying information as previously encountered
• Context effects may depend on the type of memory being tested

  Recall versus recognition
• Godden and Baddeley experiment


  • Used a recognition test instead of recall
  • Participants had to say whether they recognised a word read to them from a list, instead of retrieving it for themselves
• Recall


  Retrieving information from memory
• When recognition was tested there was no context-dependent effect, performance was the same in all four conditions
• Retrieval failure


  Limited explanation for forgetting because it only applies when a person has to recall information rather than recognise it
• Recognition


  Identifying information as previously encountered
• Context effects may depend on the type of memory being tested

  Recall versus recognition
• Godden and Baddeley experiment


  • Used a recognition test instead of recall
  • Participants had to say whether they recognised a word read to them from a list, instead of retrieving it for themselves
• When recognition was tested there was no context-dependent effect, performance was the same in all four conditions
• Retrieval failure

  Limited explanation for forgetting because it only applies when a person has to recall information rather than recognise it
• Encoding Specificity Principle


  • There is a lot of evidence that forgetting takes place when there is a mismatch (or absence) of encoding and retrieval cues
• The reasoning is circular and based on assumptions
• Experiment


  1. If a cue did not produce a recall we assume it cannot have been encoded

  2. If the cue did produce recall, we assume it must have been encoded
• This idea is unfalsifiable, it cannot be proved wrong, but therefore cannot be reliably shown to be correct
• This limits the validity of retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting