Types of Forgetting

• Tulving & Thompson (1973) proposed the encoding specificity principle. 'Memory is most effective if the information that is present at learning is also present at the time of retrieval'
• State cues, context cue
• Godden & Baddeley (1975) conducted study on divers. 18 participants (13 males and 5 females) from a university diving club divided into four conditions: learning and recalling on land, learning on land and recalling in water, learning in water and recalling on land, learning in water and learning in water
• Godden and Baddeley (1975), all conditions showed 38 words.
• Those participants that recalled information in a dry environment but learned in a wet condition, could only recall correctly a mean of 8.4 words out of 38. But, if this information was learned on land, their score was 13.5.
• Issues with Godden and Baddeley:

  • Opportunity sample
  • Extraneous variables
  • Ethical issues - one diver was nearly run over
  • Repeated measures design
• Interference theory: one memory has distorted another.
• Proactive interference: past learning interferes with new learning
• Retroactive interference: recent learning interferes with old learning
• Underwood (1957) supports interference theory