AO3 - Interference Theory

• Research to support interference theory was conducted by McGeoch & McDonald, who gave participants a list of 10 words to learn (List A). Participants had to learn this list until they could remember it 100% accurately. They then had to learn a second list of words (List B). Participants were asked to recall List A. It was found that if List B had semantically similar words to List A, recall was poor. However, if the words in List B were different to List A recall was higher. Therefore supporting interference theory as it demonstrates that interference is more likely when the items are similar.
• A strength of interference as an explanation for forgetting is that much of the research is high in reliability. It is conducted in a controlled, lab setting and therefore can be repeated in the same conditions, for example give each participant the same time to learn the word list to gain consistent results into the effects of interference on forgetting. Therefore increasing the support of research into interference theory as an explanation for forgetting.
• However, research into interference theory lacks mundane realism. Artificial tasks such as learning lists of words are often used. Therefore, it is difficult to generalise the findings to real life examples of forgetting, as the research does not reflect what we would try to remember in everyday life such as birthdays, people’s faces, the ingredients to make a cake etc., maybe these memories are less likely to be contaminated by interference as they are more meaningful to us. Thus, limiting the support the research provides for interference as an explanation for forgetting.
• Baddeley and Hitch conducted research using a real life setting where participants performed a real-life task, which supported interference theory. They asked rugby players to recall the team names they had played against over a season. The players all played for the same time interval; however, some players had played all the games, and some had not. It was found that players who had played more games forgot proportionally more than those who had played fewer games, supporting interference theory as it demonstrates that the games became confused in memory and were less likely to be recalled.