Forgetting

• Interference

  Proactive Interference - Old memory prevents the recall of more recent information. Eg: recalling the German you are learning currently but mistaking it with French that you used to learn.

  Retroactive Interference - New memory prevents the recall of previously learnt information. Eg: Trying to recall French from a couple of weeks ago but mistaking it for German you learnt more recently.
• Interference Evaluation

  There is research support for proactive interference. Tulving and Psotka gave pps a word list and recall was around 70%. Pps were then given new word lists to learn and performance decreased with each new list, suggesting memory from new lists was interfering. However, this research lacks mundane realism meaning it lacks ecological validity.
• Interference Evaluation

  Nevertheless, there is real life research to support the idea of retroactive interference. Baddeley and Hitch asked Rugby players to recall names of teams they played - they found that players had forgotten names more often if they had played multiple teams since. New teams interfered with the previous ones. However, research conducted in real life settings has a lack of control over extraneous variables (players have heard of them in the media making them more able to remember them).
• Retrieval Failure

  Information is available but cannot be recalled because of the absence of appropriate cues. The encoding specificity principle states in order to remember there must be a similarity in the cues present at encoding and recall. Cues can come from the environment (external context) or the way you feel (internal state).
• Retrieval Failure

  Context Dependent Forgetting - memories cannot be retrieved as the situation you are in is different from the situation you encoded the information in.

  State Dependent Forgetting - when memories cannot be retrieved as your internal state when recalling is different to when you encoded it.
• Retrieval Failure Evaluation

  Godden and Baddeley - Pps were divers who were asked to learn a word list whilst under water or on land. Half the pps then had to recall the info in the same context and the other half in a different context. Forgetting was higher in pps who had to recall information in a different context. Carter and Cassaday - asked to learn a word list on anti-histamines or not. Half the pps had to recall in the same state, half in a different one. Forgetting was higher for those in a different state.
• Retrieval Failure Evaluation

  RWA - explanations of forgetting have been used to establish the cognitive interview. A cause and effect relationship cannot be establish with context or state and forgetting.