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Psychology: Memory- Forgetting

Terms in this set (17)

What is forgetting?
Forgetting is when learnt information can't be retrieved.
What are the 2 explanations of forgetting?
Interference and retrieval failure
What is retrieval failure?
Retrieval failure is where information is available in long term memory but cannot be recalled because of the absence of appropriate cues.
What are the 2 types of interference?
Proactive interference and retroactive interference.
Whats proactive interference?
Forgetting occurs when older memories, already stored, disrupt the recall of newer memories. The degree of forgetting is greater when the memories are similar.
Whats retroactive interference?
Forgetting occurs when newer memories disrupt the recall of of older memories already stored. The degree of forgetting is again greater when memories are similar.
What did Underwood and Postman (1960) study?
Retroactive and proactive interference.
What was the method of Underwood and Postmans (1960) study which supported retroactive interference?
A lab experiment was used, and participants were split into two groups. Both groups had to remember a list of paired words - e.g. cat - tree, jelly - moss, book - tractor. The experimental group also had to learn another list of words where the second paired word is different - e.g. cat - glass, jelly- time, book - revolver. The control group were not given the second list. All participants were asked to recall the words on the first list. The recall of the control group was more accurate than that of the experimental group. This suggests that learning items in the second list interfered with participants' ability to recall the list. This is an example of retroactive interference.
What was the method of Underwood (1957) study which supported proactive interference?
- Underwood (1957) studied proactive interference by looking at results of studies into forgetting over a 24 hour period.
- He found that if people had previously learnt 15 or more world lists during the same experiment, a day later their recall of the last word list was around 20%. If they hadn't learnt any earlier lists, recall a day later was around 80%.
- Underwood concluded that proactive interference from the earlier lists had affected the participants ability to remember later ones.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the interference theory?
Strengths:
- PI and RI are supported by loads and loads of studies, many of which were highly controlled lab experiments
- As well as in lab experiments, there is evidence for interference existing in real-world setting too. For example, you might struggle to remember your French vocabulary if you later start learning German.
Weaknesses:
- Tells us little about the cognitive processes involved in forgetting.
- The majority of research into the role of interference in forgetting has been carried out in a laboratory using lists of words, a situation which is likely to occur fairly infrequently in everyday life (i.e. low ecological validity). As a result, it may not be possible to generalize from the findings.
- Interference effects seemed to be much greater in artificial lab settings.
What is retrieval failure?
A form of forgetting. It occurs when we don't have the necessary cues to access memory. The memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue is provided.
What can cues be?
Cues can be internal (mood) or external (context, surroundings). We remember more if we are in the same contact/mood as we were in when we coded the information originally. This is known as cue-dependent learning.
What are some types of cues that have been studied by psychologists?
- Context: external cues in the environment
- State: bodily cues inside of us
- Organisation: Recall is improved if the organisation gives a structure which provides triggers
What did Godden and Baddeley (1975) research?
The importance of context setting for retrieval. Research on context-dependant forgetting.
What was the method for Godden and Baddeley (1975) research?
Asked deep-sea divers to memorize a list of words. One group did this on the beach and the other group underwater. When they were asked to remember the words half of the beach learners remained on the beach, the rest had to recall underwater.
Half of the underwater group remained there and the others had to recall on the beach. The results show that those who had recalled in the same environment (i.e. context) which that had learned recalled 40% more words than those recalling in a different environment. This suggests that the retrieval of information is improved if it occurs in the context in which it was learned.
What research was done on state-dependant forgetting?
A study by Goodwin investigated the effect of alcohol on state-dependent (internal) retrieval. They found that when people encoded information when drunk, they were more likely to recall it in the same state.
For example, when they hid money and alcohol when drunk, they were unlikely to find them when sober. However, when they were drunk again, they often discovered the hiding place. Other studies found similar state-dependent effects when participants were given drugs such as marijuana.
Evaluate research on context-dependant forgetting and state-dependant forgetting.
- Lots of research supports the retrieval failure explanation.
- Baddeley argues that context effects are are actually not very strong, particularly in everyday life - different context have to be very different before an effect is seen, hard to find environments as different as land and water. This means retrieval failure due to lack of contextual cues may not actually explain much everyday forgetting
- Godden and Baddeley repeated experiment but with a recognition test instead of recall, and there was no context defendant effect, performance was the same in all conditions. This suggests that retrieval failure is limited explanation for forgetting because unit only applies when a person has to recall information rather than recognise it.
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