Explanations for forgetting

What is proactive interference

Occurs when an older memory interferes with a new one.

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Reteroactive interference

Happens when a new memory interferes with an older one

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McGeoch and McDonald-Aim

In both case interference is worse when the memories are similar and they wanted to discover/prove this

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McGeoch and McDonald- Procedure

Studied retroactive interference, changed similarity between two sets of materials. Learned list of words untill 100% recall achieved, learned a new list with varying degrees of similarity to previous, one condition didn't learn a new list

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McGeoch and McDonald- Findings

When ppts recalled the list of words their performance depended on nature of second list. Most similar material produced worst recall, shows interference is strongest when memories are simialer

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Evidence from lab studies supporting interference

Consistently demonstrated in lab studies, McGeoch and McDonalds research being an example. Most show both types of interference are common ways of forgetting meaning the explanation is valid

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Use of artificial materials in lab experiments on interference

Much greater risk interference will occur in a lab than in real life. Stimulus materials don't reflect real life so they may overestimate the contribution of interference to forgetting in every day lives

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Baddely and Hitch on interference- Procedure

Asked rugby players to remember names of teams they last playedin that season week by week, becuase many had missed games for some the last team they remembered playing would have been a while ago

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Baddely and Hitch on interference- Results

Clearly show accurate recall didn't depend on how long ago the match took place, more important was number of games played in the meantime. Players recall of a team from 3 weeks ago was best if hadn't played another match, showing it in real life

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Time between learning and recall in lab experiments

Time periods between learning list and recalling is relatively short for practical reasons, experience of learning something and recalling it could be over within an hour, making the experiments lack ecological validity

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Interference effects may be overcome using cues- Tulving and Psotka

Gave ppts five lists of words, each split into 6 catagories which were not explicit but obvious. Recall 70% for 1st word list, fell as ppts given each additional list, when given name of catagories recall rose again to 70%

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Encoding specificity principle- Tulving

Reviewed research into failiure, found the encoding principle which is that if a cue helps us to recall information it has to be present at encoding and retrieval, they have to be the same cues

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Context dependent forgetting- Golden and Badderley- Procedure

Divers learned a list of words either underwater or on the land and then were asked to recall the words either underwater or on the land, this therefore created four conditions.

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Context dependent forgetting- Golden and Badderley- FIndings

- In two of the conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched, whereas the other two did not. Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions. External cues were different at retrieval and learning so caused effect

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State dependent forgetting- Carter and Cassedy- procedure

Gave ppts anti-histamines which had mild sedative effect, creates internal psychological state different from normal ppts had to learn list of words and passages from pros then recall infromation creating 4 conditions (with and without histamine etc)

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State dependent forgetting- Carter and Cassedy- Findings

Conditions where there was mismatch between internal state and recall results were worse than when lerning and recalling in the same state showing state dependent forgetting

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Supporting evidence for cue dependent forgetting

Studies by Godden and Baddely, and by Carter and Cassedy are just two examples of much supporting evidence. Increases validity, especially because shown in lab conditions

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Baddely questions the context effects on cue dependent forgetting

Argues that context effect are not very strong in real life, contexts have to be very different before effects are seen. In real life context is rarely as different as land and water as in the diver experiment

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Recall versus recognition in cue dependent forgetting experiments

Context effect may be related to types of memory being studied, Godden and baddely replicated their test using recognition instead of recall, there was no context dependent effect, performance was the same in all four conditions

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Problems with the encoding specificity principle

ESP is not testable, leads to circular reasoning. If a cue produces successfull recall we assume it must have been encoded at time of learning and vice versa but this is just an assumption and it reduces the validity of the idea

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Real life applications of cue dependent forgetting

Allthough context cues have a limmited effect on forgetting, Baddely says they are still important. Example of walking into a room, forgetting what you wanted shows this. When recalling tyring to picture environment you learnt in helps (CI)

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Explanations for forgetting

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