Interference theory

Question 1

What is the interference theory?

Answer 1

Explanation of forgetting

Question 2

Why might someone forget things in the LTM?

Answer 2

Due to a lack of:
- accessibility (retrieval failure)
- availability (interference theory)

Question 3

What does the interference theory assume?

Answer 3

Memory can be disrupted or interfered with by what we have previously learnt or by what we will learn in the future

Question 4

What happens to the information in the LTM according to the interference theory?

Answer 4

Information may become confused or combined with other information during coding thus distorting or disrupting memories

Question 5

What does interference suggest forgetting is due to?

Answer 5

Issue with availability

Question 6

What is proactive interference?

Answer 6

old information proactively interferes with new information

Question 7

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 7

New information retroactively interferes with old information

Question 8

When is interferrence most likely to occur?

Answer 8

When two sets of information are similar

Question 9

A03 - Research evidence

Answer 9

• Baddeley and Hitch
• Investigated effects of rugby players recalling the names of teams they played against
• some played in all games some didnt
• time for start to end season same for all but number of intervening games were different
• if decay theory is correct then all players should remember same amount of games played because time alone should result in forgetting
• Due to interference, players who played more games should forget more
• Which B+H found, showing the effect of everyday life

Question 10

A03 - Pro/retroactive learning - lacks validity

Answer 10

• research evidence lacks validity
• most supporting research involves ppts learning and recalling word lists/nonsense syllables
• not reflect how memory is used in real life outside these artificial lab settings
• tasks are low in mundane realism and do not accurately measure forgetting in LTM
• Therefore, findings of these studies are low in ecological validity, thus interference theory may not be accurate explanation of forgetting

Question 11

A03 - only explains some situations of forgetting

Answer 11

• Weakness is that it may only explain some situations of forgetting
• Anderson argued that it is questionable how much we can argue that forgetting is mainly a result of interference
• Argument that interference may not be very important in forgetting stems from the idea that circumstances need to be unique for forgetting to occur according to the theory (two sets of information)
• Therefore this suggests that researchers must take into consideration other explanations in attempts to explain forgetting in the LTM

Question 12

Explain how they tested the similarity of materials

Answer 12

• McDonald and McGeoch
• investigated effects of similarity of materials
• Gave ppts a list of adjectives (List A)
• Once these were learnt, there was a rest interval of 10 minutes where they learnt list B followed by recall
• If list B was synonyms of list A, recall was poor (12%)
• Shows interference is stronger the more similar materials are