Memory - Forgetting - Interference Flashcards
What do psychologists believe about LTM?
Once information has reached long-term memory, they believe it is stored there permanently. However, problems occur with accessing this information.
What is interference in the context of memory?
Suggests that we forget due to our long-term memories becoming confused (disrupted) by other information while it’s coded.
What is retroactive interference?
New information is disrupted by old information. Interference works backwards in time, new information being stored will interfere with the recall of old information.
What is an example of retroactive interference?
Found it difficult to remember an old way of completing a maths question when you’ve just learnt a new technique.
You can’t remember old dance moves after learning new ones.
Using the rules from a game you’ve just learned on a similar game you used to play.
What is proactive interference?
Old information is disrupted by new information. Interference works forward in time, when old information is stored already it’ll interfere with the recall of something new.
What is an example of proactive interference?
Used an old password by mistake.
Called your new partner the name of your old partner.
Told someone the name of your old address instead of your new one.
Outline the procedure for McGeoch & McDonald (1931).
Retroactive interference:
The participants had to learn a list of words until the accuracy of their recall was 100%.
This study changed the amount of similarity between two sets of materials, which participants needed to recall.
Then the participants leant a new list of:
Synonyms – words with the same meaning
Antonyms – words with the opposite meaning
Unrelated words
Consonant syllables
3 digit numbers
State the results for McGeoch & McDonald (1931).
Synonyms = 12% accuracy in the recall of the original list.
Syllables = 26% recall
Numbers = 37% recall
Therefore, this study shows that interference is the strongest when words are more similar.
What is the effect of similarity caused by?
Proactive interference.
What are the explanations for the effects of similarity?
This is because previously stored information makes it more difficult to store newer/ similar information. Or it could be because of retroactive interference where new information writes over old information.
When will interference occur in relation to similarity?
Most likely interference will occur when two pieces of information are similar. This is due to response competition.
When will interference occur in relation to time sensitivity?
Less likely interference will occur when there’s a large gap between the instances of learning.
Baddeley and Hitch (1977)?
They investigated the effects of interference in reality.
Rugby players were asked to recall the names of teams they had played over the season.
Some of these players missed some games, therefore they played less games.
The results of this was that accurate recall didn’t depend on how long ago the player had the last match but instead it was the number of games they played in the meantime.
