Memory - B2

Forgetting can be defined as a persons inabilty to recall/recognise something they've previously learned. 

The Interference Theory

Retrieval Failure

It's an explanation for forgetting in terms of one memory disrupting the ability to recall another (most likely to occur when there's a similarity).

Retroactive interference: is when your current attempts to learn something intefere with past learning e.g when you do Spanish for one year and then do Spanish the next, you'll be likely to forget the Spanish. Research: Muller A. Research into interference P. Participants had a list on nonsense words they had to learn for 6 minutes. After this time there was an interval and some participants were given a task in the interval; to describe paintings. Once that interval was finsihed they were asked to recall the nonsense syllables from the list. F. Results weren't as good for the participants who were given a task in the interval. C. Intervening produced RI as the task interfered with previous learning. 

Proactive interference: is when past learning disrupts with current attempts to learn somehting e.g when you chnage the passcode/password on your phone, you put your old passcode in first before putting in the correct new one. Research: Underwood A. Research into interference. P. Participants were asked to memorise a list of words. Then they had to memorise a new set of lists. F. Participants that had 10 lists or more they were able to recall 20% after 24 hours. Participants who had learn only one list were able to recall 70%. C. Shows that when participants learn new words they didn't remember them as well due to PI.

A. Baddeley and Hitch (1997) aimed to investgate intereference effects in an everyday setting. P. They asked a rugly team to recall the names of teams that had played against over a rugby season. Some players weren't present in some of the games due to injuries and others were there for all the games. The time interval for all the players was the same though. F. When they recalled the teams they found that players who played in the majority of the games forgot propotionatley more of their competitors names. C. Players who forgot proportionatley more because of interference. Demonstrating the effect of interference in everyday life. 

'Research carried out into Interference Theory (both proactive and retroactive is lab-based'

There is considerable evidence that supports proactive and retroactive interefernce. However, the issues is most of the research is lab-based and uses artificial lists of words and nonsense syllables. The findings of this research may not relate to everyday life uses of memory.It lacks ecological validity. Participants may aslo lack the motivation in studies which could allow interference to appear stronger than it is. 

However, experiments can be repeated and replicated to continiously test reliability and vaIidity.

'Does it account for everyday forgetting'

Baddeley and Hitch investigated interference effects in everyday situations. They had rugby players recall the names of teams they competed against over a rugby season. However, not all the players participated in all the games due injuries. Players who played the most amount of games forgot proportionatley more due to interfence. 

'Does Interference cause a memory to disappear completely or temporarily?'

This relates to accessibility vesus availability. Researchers have questioned whether interference actually causes a memory to diappear or whether the effcts are temporary. Ceraso found that , if memory was tested again after 24 hours, recognition (accessibility) showed considerable recovery, whereas recall (availability) remained the same. This suggests that interference occurs because memories are temporarily not accessible rather than actually of being lost (unavailable).

Retreival failure occurs due to the absence of cues. It is an explanation for forgetting, based on the idea that the issue relates to being able to retreive a memory that is there but not accessible.Retrieval depends on using cues. 

They are things that act as reminder. They may meaningfully link to the material to be remembered or may not be, they could be environmental ones (extrenal/context cues) or relate to your mental state (internal/state cues).

He arranged a group of psycholgy students and they were taught and tested. When tested they were split into four groups; either with or no teacher and in or out of room they learnt info from. Those with teacher present and same room scored best. Those in different room and no teacher scored worst. Context matching that of encoding acts as a cue to improve recall. Famialir things in the room acted as cues. However superior students were less affected by this.

The mental state you're in at the time can also act as a cue. Goodwin asked a group of male volunteers to memories a lost of words when they were drunk or sober. They were then asked to recall the list of words 24 hours later. Participants in the drunk condition were 3x more drunk the UK driving limit. Recall was highest in the same state as when they learned the words. 

A. Investigate retrieval failure. P. Participants had to learn 48 words belonging to 12 catogories. There were two different recall conditions: free recall and cued recall (given cues in the form of category names). F. In the free recall condition 40% of the words recalled. In the cued recall condition 60% of the words were reaclled. C. Porvides evidence that cues have been explicitly or implicitly encoded at the time of learning and have a meaningful link to the material. Other types of cues may not be meaningful but helped in the process of retrieval. Supports theory of retreival failure. 

"Research carried out into retrieval failure is carried out using various diffrent types of experiments"

This is a good thing as it means there is lots of rearch to support the thoery. The research and evidence has also documented the imporatnce of retrieval cues on memory. The research was carried out in diffrent ways: lab, field and natural experiments. Meaning is has relevance to everyday memory. 

"The principle of using retrieval cues can be applied to the real world"

Recall can be used for exams. Abernathy's research suggests that if you revise in the room where you have your exam, it will be easier to remember content as your enivronment acts as an external cue. Smith also showed that thinking of the room where you learned information was as effective as being in the room. Providing evidence for cues. 

"Are cues a cause for retrieval or just an association?"

Some state that the realtionship between encoding cues  and later retrieval is a correltion rather than a cause. They state that cues don't cause retrieval, they're just asscoaiated with retrieval.

Baddeley made a similar criticsm he suggests that the encoding specificity principle is impossible to test because it is circular. The principle states if a cue leads to a retrieval of a memory then the cue must have been encoded, if retrieval fails then the cue must not have been encoded. BUT it is impossible to test whether an item has or hasn't been encoded in memory. 

"Retrieval cues explain interference effects"

Retrieval failure can be viewed as a more important explanation for forgetting. Tulving and Psotka had participants learn 24 words that were split into six categories. For each list participants wrote down as many words as they could remember (free recall). Participants were then presented with the names of the categories and were asked to recall words (cued recall). In the free recall condition the more lists the paricipants learned the poorer the recall - evidence of retroactive interference. HOWEVER cued recall  was about 70% not matter how many of the lists had been learned. Showcasing its importance.