Retrieval Failure Theory

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Retrieval Failure Theory

People forget information because of insufficient cues.

Information in the LTM is rarely actually forgotten, it's just difficult to locate.

Initially associated cues are remembered at the same time as the new information. If these cues are not available at recall, it seems like you've forgotten the information, but it's actually because you can't retrieve it. So it is retrieval failure.

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Encoding Specificity Principle

For a cue to help with remembering/locating information, ESP states it has to be present and the same at both learning and retrieval.

If the cues are different (or not there), there will be some forgetting.

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Context Dependent Forgetting

The idea that recall is increased if the information is recalled in the same place that it is learnt.

RESEARCH - Godden and Baddely

Independent groups. Deep-sea divers learned lists of words either on land or underwater. Recall was then etsted in the same of different context.

Those who learned and recalled in different contexts showed more than a 30% performance decrease compared to those that learned and recalled in the same contexts.

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State Dependent Forgetting

Recall is improved when participants are in the same state (i.e. mood) when both learning and recall occur.

RESEARCH - Goodwin et al.

 They asked male volunteers to remember lists of words when they were either sober or drunk (3 times UK driving limit). They recalled it 24hrs later, with some sober and some drunk again. The results show similar recall when in the same state, regardless of whether this state is drunk or sober.

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Evaluation of Retrieval Failure Theory

Strengths:

  • Supporting Evidence - Baddely and Godden
  • Supporting evidence - Goodwin et al
  • Real world applications i.e. Cognitive interview (context reinstatement)

Limitations

  • Questioning effects of context in real life. Contexts have to be very different for it to have an effect on recall so in real lfe it is unlikely to account for much forgetting day-to-day
  • Methodological issues - Baddely and Godden - Lacks population validity due to sample only being deep-sea divers.
  • methodological issues - Goodwin et al. - lacks population validity as an all male sample. Also, different people can handle more alcohol than others so this effects how well they may have recaled the information.
  • Reductionist - oversimplifies the concept too much and generalises it to everyone.
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