Retrieval failure

• Overview


  People forget information due to insufficient cues. When information is initially placed in memory, associated cues are stored at the same time. If these cues are not available at the time of recall it may appear as if you have forgotten the information
• Context dependent forgetting

  Cues may be External Cues. Examples of external cues include associated words, places and smells
• Godden and Baddley

  • Carried out a study of deep sea divers working underwater. In this situation it is crucial – a matter of life or death – for divers to remember instructions given before diving.

  
• State-dependent forgetting

  Cues may be internal cues. Examples of internal cues include mood, emotional state and physiological state.
• Goodwin et al


  Male volunteers were required to learn a list of words when they were either drunk or sober.

  Those in the ‘drunk’ condition were three times over the UK drink driving limit.

  Participants were asked to recall lists of words after 24 hours. Some were

  sober, but others had to get drunk again.

  The recall scores suggest that information learned when drunk is more available when asked to recall in the same state later on
• Strength (retrieval failure)


  Practical applications have arisen from the research. For example, the cognitive interview whereby the interviewer encourages the interviewee to mentally recreate both the physical and psychological environment of the incident.
• Limitation (retrieval failure)


  retrieval failure theory is a difficult phenomenon to measure accurately. It is suggested that forgetting occurs due to the overlap between information contained in cues and information stored in long term memory