memory - forgetting

Question 1

what is forgetting?

Answer 1

when learnt information cannot be retrieved

Question 2

what is forgetting in the STM thought to be due to?

Answer 2

due to an availability problem
(limited capacity and duration) causing information to be pushed out (displaced) or fade away (decay)

Question 3

what can LTM forgetting be caused by?

Answer 3

-decay
-interference
-retrieval failure

Question 4

what is interference?

Answer 4

when two pieces of information conflict with eachother, leading to the forgetting of one or both pieces of information

Question 5

when is interference more likely?

Answer 5

when information is similar

Question 6

when is interference less likely to occur?

Answer 6

when there is a gap between the instances of learning

Question 7

how can interference be overcome?

Answer 7

by using cues to trigger recall

Question 8

what is proactive interference?

Answer 8

when an older memory interferes with a new one

Question 9

how to remember proactive interference:

Answer 9

→
old goes to the new

Question 10

what is retroactive interference?

Answer 10

when a newer memory interferes with an older one

Question 11

how to remember retroactive interference:

Answer 11

<———
new goes to old

Question 12

amaan has played doubles tennis for years but when his friend stops playing. he starts playing singles matches. After a few matches, he keeps hitting the ball into the tramlines, forgetting this isn’t permitted in a singles match.

(proactive or retroactive)

Answer 12

proactive

Question 13

sumaiya gets a new bank card and memorises the PIN. When she wants to use her old card, she finds she has forgotten the PIN for that one.

(proactive or retroactive)

Answer 13

retroactive

Question 14

two key studies into interference:

Answer 14

-keppel & underwood (1962)
-baddeley and hitch (1977)

Question 15

when was the keppel and underwood study?

Answer 15

1962

Question 16

aim of the keppel and underwood study:

Answer 16

to investigate the effect of proactive interference on LTM

Question 17

method of keppel and underwood study:

Answer 17

-participants were presented with
meaningless three‐letter consonant trigrams at different intervals (3, 6, 9 seconds, etc)
-to prevent rehearsal the participants had to count backwards in threes before recalling

Question 18

results of the keppel and underwood study:

Answer 18

participants typically remembered the trigrams that were presented first, regardless of the interval length

Question 19

conclusion of keppel and underwood study:

Answer 19

proactive interference occurred…
memory for the earlier trigrams (which had transferred to LTM) interfered with the memory for new trigrams, due to the similarity of the information presented

Question 20

what was the aim of the baddeley and hitch study & when was it?

Answer 20

to investigate retroactive interference in everyday memory
(1977)

Question 21

sample of baddeley and hitch study:

Answer 21

-rugby union players who had played every match in the season
-players who had missed some games due to injury

(the length of time from the start to the end of the season was the same for all players)

Question 22

method of baddeley and hitch study:

Answer 22

players were asked to recall the names of the teams they had played against earlier in the season

Question 23

results of baddeley and hitch study:

Answer 23

the players who had played the most games forgot proportionately more games than those who had played fewer games due to injury

Question 24

conclusion of baddeley and hitch study:

Answer 24

-learning of new information (new team names) interfered with the memory of old information (earlier team names).

→ they were able to show that the probability of correct recall was not dependent on the passage of time (so not due to decay) but on the number of intervening games (interference)

Question 25

who was the third study into interference done by and what did it investigate?

Answer 25

mcgeoch and mcdonald: (1931) how the similarity of information affected interference

Question 26

when was mcgeoch and mcdonald’s study?

Answer 26

1931

Question 27

method of mcgeoch and mcdonald’s study:

Answer 27

-they studied interference by changing the amount of similarity between two sets of materials -participants had to learn a list of words until they could remember them 100% accurately / they then learned a new list -six groups learned different types of lists (eg: synonyms, antonyms, unrelated)

Question 28

results of mcgeoch and mcdonald’s study:

Answer 28

recall was worse when lists were most similar in material

Question 29

conslusion of mcgeoch and mcdonald’s study:

Answer 29

this supports the idea of interference increasing with similar content, the more similar the new material is to the previously learnt material, the greater the interference

Question 30

strengths of interference:

Answer 30

-evidence from lab studies -support from real life studies -interference can be overcome using cues

Question 31

strengths / ao3 -evidence from lab studies

Answer 31

P - **evidence from lab studies consistently demonstrates interference in memory** E - keppel and underwood gave pps nonsense trigrams to remember and found that they remembered trigrams that were presented first ↳ this supports the theory of proactive interference, as memory for the older trigrams interfered with the learning of the new trigrams L - these findings can also be applied to real life – **don’t learn similar types of information at the same time**

Question 32

strengths / ao3 - support from real life studies

Answer 32

P - **real life studies have supported the interference explanation** E - baddeley and hitch asked rugby players to recall the names of teams they had played so far inn that season week by week ↳ accurate recall did not depend on how long ago the match took place. more important was the number of games played in the meantime L - this **study shows that interference explanations can apply to some everyday situations**

Question 33

strengths / ao3 - interference may be overcome

Answer 33

P - interference effects may be overcome using cues E - tulving and Psotka gave participants five lists of words each organised into 6 categories ↳ categories were not explicit but it was assumed they would be obvious when presented ↳ recall was about 70% for the first list but this fell as each additional list was learned, presumably due to interference. however, when given a cued recall list (told the names of the categories) recall rose again to about 70% L - this suggests that interference may only be temporary and can be overcome when a cue is used to stop interference from preventing access to information

Question 34

weaknesses of interference:

Answer 34

research lacks ecological validity

Question 35

ao3 / weakness - research lacks ecological validity:

Answer 35

P - research into interference often lacks ecological validity E - the stimulus material used is often word lists or nonsense trigrams which is not how we use our memory in everyday life ↳ research usually uses similar information which makes interference even more likely under experimental conditions L - these findings used to support the theory do not represent everyday examples of interference and are limited in their application

Question 36

what is a cue?

Answer 36

trigger of information that allows us to access a memory

Question 37

two types of cues:

Answer 37

-external (environmental) -internal (mood)

Question 38

what is retrieval failure?

Answer 38

an explanation of forgetting based on the idea that we don’t have the necessary cues to access memory

Question 39

what are the two types of failure?

Answer 39

-context‐dependent failure -state‐dependent failure

Question 40

what did tulving propose about retrieval failure?

Answer 40

the encoding specificity principle: memory is most effective when information that was present at the time of coding is also present at the time of retrieval

Question 41

what is context-dependent forgetting/failure?

Answer 41

when environmental cues present when information is learnt aren’t present at recall

Question 42

what is state-dependent forgetting/failure?

Answer 42

when an individual’s emotional state is different when learning information and when trying to recall information

Question 43

key studies into retrieval failure:

Answer 43

-godden and baddeley (1975) -carter and cassaday (1998)

Question 44

aim of godden and baddeley study:

Answer 44

to investigate the effect of contextual cues on recall

Question 45

sample of godden and baddeley study:

Answer 45

18 participants from a university diving club

Question 46

method of godden and baddeley study:

Answer 46

-the experiment was a repeated measures design with each participant taking part in all four conditions, over four separate days -in all four conditions participants had to learn 38 words, which they heard twice during the learning stage -after hearing all 38 words the participants were instructed to write all the words they could remember in any order (in the recall stage)

Question 47

conditions of godden and baddeley study:

Answer 47

1) learning words on land and recalling on land 2) learning words on land and recalling underwater 3) learning underwater and recalling underwater 4) learning underwater and recalling on land

Question 48

results of godden and baddeley study:

Answer 48

the words learned underwater were better recalled underwater and words learned on and were better recalled on land

Question 49

conclusion of godden and baddeley study:

Answer 49

-it is reasonable to conclude that the environmental cues (context) improve recall -divers performed worse because there was a mismatch between the cues available at learning and at recall

Question 50

evaluations of godden and baddeley study:

Answer 50

**real life application** → useful for police collecting information as it suggests taking witnesses back to the scene of the crime could help them recall more information, could wear a particular perfume when revising and doing an exam **small sample size** → 18 ppts is a small sample size to generalise from **recall was short term** → ppts had to recall words almost immediately, the short time makes generalisability limited as the time period is unrealistic

Question 51

aim of carter and cassaday study:

Answer 51

to examine state‐dependent forgetting using anti‐histamine drugs

Question 52

why were anti histamines used?

Answer 52

theycan make the individual feel drowsy, and therefore not as alert as they would normally be, providing a comparison to everyday non‐drug‐induced behaviour

Question 53

method of carter & cassaday study:

Answer 53

-participants were tasked with learning a list of words and an excerpts from a text and then **asked to recall the information at a later point** -there were four conditions in their experiment

Question 54

four conditions of carter and cassaday study:

Answer 54

1) learn the words/text after taking anti‐histamine and recall after taking anti‐histamine 2) learn the words/text without anti‐histamine and recall without anti‐histamine 3) learn the words/text after talking anti‐histamine and recall without anti‐histamines 4) learn without taking antihistamine, recall with antihistamine

Question 55

results of carter and cassaday study:

Answer 55

in the conditions where the learning and recalling state matched memory was improved

Question 56

conclusion of carter and cassaday study:

Answer 56

internal state cues improve recall

Question 57

strengths of retrieval failure:

Answer 57

-everyday applications -further research support for state dependent forgetting

Question 58

ao3 / strength - further research support for the effect of state‐dependent retrieval failure

Answer 58

P - further research support for the effect of state‐dependent retrieval failure E - male volunteers were asked to remember lists of words when they were either drunk or sober. the participants were then asked to recall the words 24 hours later, in either a drunk or sober state L - results show that words learned when drunk were better recalled when drunk, and words learnt when sober were better recalled when sober. ↳ these results support the idea of state‐dependent retrieval failure

Question 59

ao3 / strength - successful everyday applications (CONTEXT REINSTATEMNT in cogninterview)

Answer 59

P - successful everyday applications E - people often report these experiences: they were upstairs and went downstairs to get an item but forgot what they came downstairs for, when they go back upstairs, they remember again ↳ the application is that when we have trouble remembering something it is probably worth making the effort to revisit the environment in which you first experienced it L - useful applications of research into retrieval failure

Question 60

weaknesses of retrieval failure

Answer 60

-context effects are not very strong in real life -context effects only occur when memory is tested in certain ways

Question 61

ao3 / criticism - context effects are not very strong in real life

Answer 61

P - context effects are not very strong in real life E - baddeley argued that different contexts have to be very different indeed before an effect is seen (e.g. on land verses underwater) ↳ learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because the environments are not different enough L - the real life applications of retrieval failure due to contextual may not actually explain much forgetting

Question 62

ao3 / criticism - context effects only occur when memory is tested in certain ways

Answer 62

P - context effects only occurs when memory is tested in certain ways E - godden and baddeley replicated their underwater experiment using a recognition test instead of recall ↳ there was no context dependent effect, performance was the same in all four conditions L - limits retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting because the presence or absence of cues only affect memory when you test recall rather than recognition

Question 63

what is decay?

Answer 63

over time, memories fade and become less accessible, leading to forgetting