explanations for forgetting - interference Flashcards
what is interference?
interference occurs when the recall of one memory blocks the recall of another, causing forgetting or
distorted perceptions of these memories
what are the 2 types of interference?
- proactive interference
- retroactive interference
what is proactive interference?
older information interferes with your ability to remember new information
what is an example of proactive interference?
you’re trying to remember your new phone number but you keep thinking of your previous one
what is retroactive interference?
new memories block the
recollection of old memories
what is an example of retroactive interference?
learning a new teacher’s name and forgetting what the previous teacher was called
when is interference worse?
when the memory or learning is similar (e.g. phone numbers)
who researched interference?
McGeoch and McDonald
outline McGeoch’s and McDonald’s procedure
- asked ppt’s to learn a list of words until they were 100% accurate in recall
- ppt’s were divided into 6 groups to recall different lists of words (synonyms, antonyms, words unrelated to the original list, 3 digit numbers, consonant syllables)
or no new list (control group) - they found that those who’d learnt the synonyms list experienced an average of 3.1 fewer correct items
recalled, compared to the control group
how does McGeoch and McDonald’s research support interference?
supports the idea that the extent of forgetting is larger when the two memories or materials are very similar i.e. a positive correlation between forgetting and similarity.
evaluation: research support (Baddeley and Hitch)
ID: there is research to support
Q: this comes from Baddeley and Hitch who conducted research on rugby players and found support for retroactive interference
EX: for example, Baddeley and Hitch asked a group of rugby players to recall the names of the teams they had played in fixtures. some played all the games, and some missed games due to injury. they found that those who played the most games forgot more of the team names. this
can be explained in terms of interference, where the more games each player had played, the more
likely the memories of these newer games would interfere recall of older games i.e. retroactive interference.
AN: this is a strength of interference as an explanation of forgetting as there is real-life application to support the link between retroactive interference and forgetting, increasing external validity
evaluation: evidence to support proactive explanation (Underwood)
ID: there is evidence to support the proactive explanation for forgetting
Q: this evidence comes from Underwood, who analysed a meta-analysis of studies
EX: for example, he found that when ppt’s had to learn a series of word lists they cannot learn the word lists given later on in the series, as well as the ones given earlier on in the series. it was concluded that the earlier word lists were disrupting the recall of the new material
AN: this is a strength as it supports the idea that proactive interference has a role in the learning of words
evaluation: artificial stimuli
ID: however, a weakness of interference as an explanation is that the research support uses materials which are meaningless
Q: this means that, although there are a large number of highly controlled lab studies showing clear evidence of RI and PI, the tasks they use don’t reflect the tasks we use our memory for in real-life
EX: for example, remembering lists of words, nonsense syllables or numbers doesn’t reflect real-life memory activities, where what we are trying to remember is often meaningful and varied
AN: this is a limitation as the findings may not be able to be generalised to real-life settings as they aren’t representative, reducing ecological validity
