Explanations for Forgetting: Retrieval Failure

Question 1

Explanations for Forgetting: Retrival Failure

Cues/Retrieval Failure

Answer 1

• When we store a memory for the first time, associated cues are stored with it.
• We forget information because those cues aren’t available to us.
• Forgetting may be due to retrieval failure (not being able to access a memory).

Question 2

Explanations for Forgetting: Retrival Failure

Encoding Specificity Principle (ESP)

Answer 2

• Cue that helps to recall a memory has to be present when information is initially encoded.
• Must also be present when attempting recall.

Question 3

Retrival Failure: Context-dependent Forgetting

Procedure

Godden and Baddeley (1975)

Answer 3

• Godden and Baddeley (1975) made divers recall word lists on land or underwater.
• There were 4 conditions: learning on land, recall underwater; learning on land, recall on land; learning underwater, recall underwater; learning underwater, recall on land.
• If the environment was the same for recall and learning, recall was better.

Question 4

Retrival Failure: Context-dependent Forgetting

Findings

Godden and Baddeley (1975)

Answer 4

• In two conditions, the environment for learning and recall matched.
• In the other two, they did not.
• Accurate recall was 40% lower in non-matching conditions.
• They concluded the external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall, leading to retrieval failure.

Question 5

Retrieval Failure: State-dependent Forgetting

Procedure

Carter and Cassaday (1998)

Answer 5

• Researchers gave antihistamine drugs to the participants.
• The drug has a mild sedative effect, making the participants slightly drowsy.
• This creates an internal psychological state different from the ‘normal’ state of being awake and alert.
• The participants had to learn lists of words and passages of prose and then recall the information.
• There were 4 conditions: learning on drug, recall on drug; learn on drug, recall not on drug; learn not on drug, recall on drug; learn not on drug, recall not on drug.

Question 6

Retrieval Failure: State-dependent Forgetting

Findings

Carter and Cassaday (1998)

Answer 6

• In the conditions where there was a mis-match between the internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse.
• When (state or context) cues are absent, there is more forgetting.

Question 7

Retrival Failure: Evaluation

Real-world Application

Strength

Answer 7

• Retrieval cues can help to overcome some forgetting in everyday situations.
• Although cues may not have a strong effect on forgetting, Baddeley suggests they are worth paying attention to.
• For instance, the experience of thinking ‘I must go and get such-and-such item from another room’, going into that room and immediately forgetting what you went into that room for.
• But, upon returning to the first room, you remember again.
• When wel have trouble remembering something, it may be helpful to recall the environment in which it was first learned.

This shows how research into retrieval failure can remind us of stregeties we can use in real life to improve our recall.

Question 8

Retrieval Failure: Evaluation

Research Support

Strength

Answer 8

• There is an immense range of research supporting the retrieval failure explanation.
• Godden and Baddeley (1975) and Carter and Cassaday (1998) are just two examples of research that show that a lack of retrieval cues can lead to forgetting in everyday life.
• Memory researchers Eysenck and Keane (2010) aruge retrieval failure is main reason for forgetting from LTM.

This evidence shows that retrieval failure happens in everyday life as well as the highly-controlled conditions of the lab (high external validity)

Question 9

Retrieval Failure: Evaluation

Counterpoint

(Research Support)

Answer 9

• Baddeley (1997) argues that context effects are not very strong.
• Contexts have to be very different in order for an effect to be seen.
• For example, it would be unlikely to find environments as different as on land and underwater.
• Learning something in one room and then recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because these environments are not different enough.

This means that retrieval failure due to a lack on contextual cues may not actually explain much everyday forgetting.

Question 10

Retrieval Failure: Evaluation

Recall vs Recognition

Limitation

Answer 10

• Context effects may depend substantially on the type of memory tested.
• Godden and Baddeley (1980) replicated their underwater experiment, using a recognition test instead of recall.
• Participants had to say whether they recognise a word read to them from a list, instead of retrieving it for themselves.
• When recognition was tested, there was no context-dependent effect and performance was the same on all 4 conditions.

This suggests that retrieval failure is a limited explanation for forgetting because it only applies to recalling information, rather than recognising it.