Forgetting- Interference Flashcards
(11 cards)
What is interference?
When two pieces of information disrupt eachother, resulting in forgetting of one or both or distortion of memory
What is proactive interference?
Old information stored in LTM interferes with learning new infromation
What is an example of proactive interference?
When you get a new phone number, your memory for your old number will disrupt your attempts to remembrance your new memory
What is retroactive interference?
Happens when a newer memory interferes with an older one
Example of retroactive interference?
once you have learnt your new phone number, it is hard to remember your old number
Key study- proactive interference: Keppel and Underwood (1962)?
Presented with 3 letter trigrams at different intervals (3,6,9)
To stop rehearsal- brown Peterson technique was used
PPTS typically remembered the trigrams that were presented first, irrespective of the interval length
Suggests proactive interference occurred as memory for the earlier consonants (which had transferred to LTM) interfered with the memory for new constants due to the similarity of the information presented
Key study (Baddeley and Hitch): retroactive interference?
Rugby players who had played every match in the season and players who had missed some games
Players were asked to recall the names of the teams they had played against earlier in the season
The players who had played the mos games forgot more games than those who had played fewer gams
Learning new information (new team names) interfered with old information
Strengths of research- McGeoch and McDonald (1931)?
PPTS given 10 adjectives to learn (list A)
PPTS given list B to learn- varied in similarity to list A
Recall was worse when list A and B were more similar
More similar the new material is to the previously learnt material, the greater the interference
Counterpoint of real-world interference?
Interference causing forgetting in everyday situations is unusual- lab studies can ensure the researcher can create ideal conditions for interference
2 memories have to be fairly similar in order to interfere with eachother
May happen occasionally e.g. if you were to revise similar subjects close in time but not often
Forgetting may be better explained by other theories like retrieval failure due to lack of cues `
Interference and cues: interference is temporary and can be overcome by using cues?
Tulving gave PPTS lists of words, one list at a time. Recall was 70% for the first list- became worse as ppts learned each additional list (proactive interference)
At the end of the procedure, ppts were given a cued recall test- recall rose again to 70%
Shows that interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility of material that is still in LTM- a finding not predicted by interference theory
When is retroactive interference stronger?
When the information is more similar
