interference ao3 Flashcards
(4 cards)
Strength of interfere - irl studies
P: One strength of interference theory is evidence for its effect in more everyday situations.
EE: Baddeley and Hitch (1977) asked rugby players to recall the names of the teams they had played against during a rugby season. The players all played for the same time interval (over one season) but the number of intervening games varied because some players missed matches due to injury. They found that players who played the most games had the poorest recall
L: This study shows that interference can operate in at least some real world situations, increasing the validity of the theory.
Research support counterpoint
P: However despite this, critics have argued that interference in the real world may be quite rare, because the conditions needed to produce interference are quite rare, whereas in a lab this is not the case.
EE: For example, in the real world we only rarely learn two very similar pieces of information within a short time frame and then have to recall them, Whereas in a lab learning an recall are controlled and happen quite quickly. Also in the real world there are variables that impact us and our learning, which can be controlled in a lab.
L: Therefore a lab can produce the conditions need for interference to occur in a way they may rarely do in the real world. Which means that whilst we can produce interference in a lab, it may not always be a reliable explanation in the real world and forgetting may be better explained by theories such as retrieval failure.
Strength - research support from lab studies
P: one strength if interference theory is research support for the effects for effects of similarity by mcgeoch and McDonald
E: they studied retroactive interfernece by changing amount of similarity bet 2 sets of material gave ptts list of words to lesrn till 100% accuracy followed by 1 of 6 new lists of words. Seconf Isit was either synonyms, antonyms, unrelated adjectices, consonant syllables or no list or numbers.
E: they found Group who had synonyms had worst recakk wehn asjed ro recall og list justfyinh that interferce is made worse when 2 perices of info is similar
L: so this study clearly demonstrates how interference can cause forgetting, even more so when the material is similar
Limitation - interference can be overcome
P: One limitation is that interference is temporary and can be overcome by using cues.
E: Tulving and Psotka (1971) gave participants lists of words organised into categories, one list at a time (the categories were kept a secret). Recall averaged at around 70% for the first list but became progressively worse as additional lists were learned (PI).
E: However, at the end of the experiment the participants were given a cued test in which they were told the categories, which resulting in the recall rising to around 70% again.
L: This shows that interference causes a temporary loss of access to material that is still in LTM, rather than causing forgetting, as the theory suggests.
