Explanations For Forgetting Flashcards
(19 cards)
What is the interference theory?
Suggests we forget because our long term memories become confused (disrupted) by other information while it is coded
What is proactive interference?
Old information disrupts new
Works forward in time, old information already stored interes with recalling new information
What two things make interference more likely?
• Similarity
• Time sensitivity
What is retro-active interference?
• New information disrupts old
• Works backward in time, new information being stored interferes with recall of old information
What does similarity mean? Why is it caused?
Interference more likely to occur when the two pieces of information are similar
Due to response competition
What is time sensitivity?
Interference is more likely to occur when there is a small time gap between the instances of learning
What study proves retro-active interference?
• Schmidt et al
• 11-79 yr olds were sent a questionnaire containing a map of the area around their old school without street names
• It was found that the more times an individual moved home, the fewer street names recalled, creating a negative correlation
• Process of remembering new street names interferes with the previously stored LTM if old street names
What study provides evidence for pro-active interference?
• Greenberg & Underwood
• Asked participants to learn 10 paired word lists
• Gave participants 48hrs before recall
• Repeated 4 times
• It was found the number of correctly recalled word pairs decreased the more word pairs learnt previously
• Proves pro-active as previously learnt word combinations caused confusion in the coding of the later word lists
What is cue dependant forgetting?
Information is in the LTM, but forgetting happens due to absence of appropiate cues/prompts encoded at the same time (encoding specificity principle)
What are context dependant cues?
• Aspects of the external environment work as cues to memory (sight, smell, sound)
• e.g. Being in a different place would inhibit memory as we would lack environmental cues
What study supports the idea of context cues?
• Godden and Baddeley
• Studied divers
• Asked them to learn new material either on dry land or while underwater, then tested on either dry land or underwater
• It was found recall was worse if in recalled in a different context, e.g. info learnt underwater was best recalled underwater
What are state dependant cues?
• Aspects of our internal environments work as cues to memory (emotions, drugs ect)
• Being in a different emotional state would inhibit memory as we would lack state dependant cues
What study proves state dependant cues?
• Overton
• Asked participants to learn material either drunk or sober then tested them on this information when they were drunk or sober
• It was found recall was worse if in a different internal state than information was learnt (e.g. if they learnt it while drunk then recalled while sober)
What are category/organisational dependant cues?
• Providing cues that relate to the organisation/category of memories may aid recall
• Most effective cues have fewer things associated with them
• Lack of organisation/category cues may inhibit memory
What study suggests category dependant cues aid recall?
• Tulving & Pealstone
• Askes participants to learn 48 words
• Participants either used free recall (answering in any order) or recall to match 12 4-word-categories
• Was found participants recalled significantly more in the category condition
How has psychological research into how forgetting works had real practical applications?
• Students can develop effective revision strategies
• Theories such as context cues improving recall have been used in developing the effective poloce technique of cognitive interview
As interference and cue theory may only explain a temporary loss of information, what does this mean?
• May not be a true explanation of forgetting as ‘forgetting’ is the permanent loss of information from LTM
Interference only explains forgetting when two sets of info are similar and often learnt close together in time, what does this mean?
The theory struggles to explain many day-to-day examples of forgetting (e.g. forgetting someone’s birthday)
Much of the evidence on interference as a factor in forgetting comes from artificial experiments using artificial tasks, what does this mean?
• External validity of these findings may be low
- Interference may not occur to the same extent in more real-life settings and scenarios
