proactive and retroactive interference

Question 1

what is proactive interference

Answer 1

when old memories affect new memories

Question 2

what is retroactive interference

Answer 2

when new memories affect old existing memories

Question 3

supporting evidence for proactive and retroactive interference

Answer 3

McGeough and McDonald
pps were given 10 words to learn with 100% accuracy
pps has to learn another list of items this is testing retroactive interference
Groups varied with the list of words synonyms, antonyms, unrelated

Question 4

the findings for the supporting research of retroactive interference

Answer 4

when pps were asked to recall the original word list recall was worse in the condition were the new list was similar (in the synonym condition) which caused the most confusion.
This study illustrates how interference can be a explanation for forgetting

Question 5

Limitations of Mcdonald and Mcgeogh’s study

Answer 5

This is an artificial task it lacks mundane realism , as it a labotary conditions, for interference to have a significant affect the material has to be similar which happens usually in everyday life but doesn’t always results in forgetting. Interference as an explanation for forgetting can be questioned based on research that lacks ecological validity.

Question 6

which study was labatory and which was a real life study

Answer 6

Mcdonald and McGeogh - lab
Baddeley and Hitch - Real life

Question 7

Baddeley and Hitch (1977)

Answer 7

conducted a research with rugby players
asked rugby players to recall the names of all the other rugby teams they had played in the season
the same number of time was the same for all of the rugby players but the time amount of games they played were different

Question 8

Baddeley and Hitch’s findings 1977

Answer 8

the amount of time that has passed was not a key factor in their ability to recall
INSTEAD
what influenced their memory was the amount of games they has played between their last game and the other game.

This study encapsulates the idea that interference can be used as an explanation for forgetting in real life situations which adds credibility to the theory

Question 9

Limitations of interference as an explanation of forgetting

Answer 9

Interference can be over come by cues

Question 10

Research into the limitations of interference

Answer 10

Tulving and Polska
- pps were given a list of words which were made up of categories they were unaware about
At first recall was accurate but declined after learning more lists, however when Tuvling and Polska gave the pps the categories (cues) they weren’t aware of at the start - memory recall improved back up to 70%
This shows that interference causes a temporary loss of access to memories but can be overcome by the use of cues