Week 2: Forgetting

• Describe the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve.

  • Forgetting occurs rapidly after the first hour of learning and then slows - logarithmic
  • Savings Method: Measured how many sessions were required for relearning compared to original learning
• Cue overload


  Extent to which associations or cues between memory and retrieval match
• What did Tulving assume is stored alongside the core information about an event?

  Assumes context is stored alongside the core information about an event which can be both external (environment) and internal (mood)
• What happened when Godden and Baddeley used a recognition test instead of recall?

  Context had no effect on recognition.
• How can encoding specificity ideas be expressed in terms of brain activity? What is neural reinstatement?

  Memory recall depends on whether or not the same neural encoding patterns are replicated during retrieval.
• What is the evidence for neural reinstatement?

  Wing et al. - Recall better when brain activity at encoding and retrieval was similar in visual processing areas.
• What is the research against neural reinstatement?

  Mallow et al. - When recalling digits, there was little neural reinstatement as none of the main brain areas were active during encoding and retrieval as the processes were different and complex
• What does consolidation mean?

  Converting temporary forgettable memories into a more stable, long-lasting format where it is assumed memory traces are fixated.
• How is consolidation related to Jost's Law and Ribot's Law?

  Jost's Law - Older two memories of the same strength will decay more slowly

  Ribot's Law - Brain injury effects are greater on newly formed memories than older consolidated memories
• What is reconsolidation?

  When the previously formed memory trace is reactivated and allows the trace to be updated
• Why is reconsolidation useful?

  Useful for updating information
• What was reported by Chan & LaPaglia (2013) in relation to reconsolidation?


  • Misinformation during the relearning phase led to substantial forgetting of information from the movie in the reconsolidation condition but not in the non-reconsolidation condition.
  • Reactivating memory traces from the movie triggered reconsolidation, making memories more vulnerable to misinformation
  • Memory traces not subjected by misinformation was not disrupted
• Goh and Lu study conditions were what?

  PP given either high load or low load cue word lists
• What did PP have to recall in Goh and Lu's study?

  There were different cues: intra-list, strong extra list cue and weak extra list cue.
• What were the findings of Goh and Lu?

  Support for cue overload and encoding specificity principle as performance for intra-list and low cue overload were high.
• What did Jacoby et al. (2015) find about interference?

  • Discovered proactive interference occurs when PP cannot detect changes between word pairing between lists
  • When PP told to detect word pairing changes, proactive facilitation occurs instead.
  • Proactive interference can reduced if we notice changes between learned and new information
• Why does proactive interference occur, according to Jacoby 2001?

  Proactive interference was due to the strength of the incorrect response than the weakness of the correct response
• What did Bauml and Kliegl propose about proactive interference?

  When the memory search is too wide, proactive interference occurs.
• What were the conditions of Bauml + Kliegl's study?

  Given 3 word lists and cue on whether PP had to learn it or not
• Bauml and Kliegl's findings were?

  Control and forget conditions had similar higher recall percentages, but proactive interference condition had lower recall percentage
• How did Bauml and Kliegl interpret their findings?

  Cue to forget allowed PP to focus retrieval efforts on the last list.
• What is the classic strategy used to study interference?

  Paired - association learning
• What is paired association learning testing method?

  Word pairs are shown to PP and the number of times the PP are shown word pairs changes
• There are two types of word pairs shown to PP in paired association learning. What are they?

  Congruent and incongruent
• What does congruent words mean?

  words paired more frequently together
• How does the work on Bahrick (1984) relate to Ebbinghaus?

  • Spanish skills decreased exponentially but retention for next 30 years remained unchanged
  • This is like the Ebbinghaus curve as it shows the same initial trend of rapid forgetting and a stable slow regular loss of information
• How does Bahrick et al.'s (1975) study relate to Ebbinghaus?

  Shows a trend of memory declining but over a long period of time when testing memory of faces and names of high school graduates