Interference Theory

Question 1

Who did research to support interference theory?

Answer 1

McGeoch and McDonald
Baddley and Hitch

Question 2

What was the procedure of McGeoch and McDonald’s study?

Answer 2

Participants had to learn a list of 10 words until they could
remember them with 100% accuracy.
Participants then had to learn a second list of words (List B) (this is the interference).
Participants were then asked to recall List A.

Question 3

What were the findings of McGeoch and McDonald’s study?

Answer 3

It was found that if List B was a list of similar meaning words (synonyms) to
List A, recall was (12%).
However, if the words in List B were different to List A recall was (26%).

Question 4

What was the % recall if List B was different to list A?

Answer 4

26%

Question 5

What was the % recall if List B was similar to list A?

Answer 5

12%

Question 6

What was McGeoch and McDonald’s study praised for?

Answer 6

High reliability

Question 7

Why is McGeoch and McDonald’s research high in reliability?

Answer 7

Took place in a controlled lab setting so the study and environment can be easily replicated to check for consistent results

Question 8

What is a criticism of McGeoch and McDonald’s research?

Answer 8

Lacks mundane realism

Question 9

Why doesMcGeoch and McDonald’s lack mundane realism?

Answer 9

Artificial tasks such as learning lists of words are
often used. Therefore, it is difficult to generalise the findings to real life examples of forgetting, as the research does not
reflect what we would try to remember in everyday life such as birthdays, people’s faces, the ingredients to make a cake
etc., maybe these memories are less likely to be contaminated by interference as they are more meaningful to us.