Explanations for forgetting

Proactive Interference

When old information interferes with the  new information and prevents you from learning new information.

Keppel & Underwood (1962)

aim: To investigate the effect of proactive interference on LTM.

method: In an experiement where participants were presented with consonant trigrams. They had to count backwards in threes before recalling.

findings: participants typically remembered the trigrams that were presented first, irrespective of their interval length.

conclusion: proactive interference ocurred due to memory from earlier consonants interfering with the memory for new consonants due to the similarity of information presented.

Retroactive Interference

When new information interferes with our ability to recall old information.

Baddley & Hitch (1977)

aim: To investigate retroactive interference in everyday memory.

method: A sample…