retrieval failure ao3 Flashcards
(4 cards)
Strength of retrieval failure - supporting evidence
P: There are a lot of research studies providing evidence for retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting.
E: research by carter and cassady was a lab study that tested partipants recall of word lists either recalling on or off drug and learning on and off drug. they found that when there was a mismatch between internal state for learning and recall performance was significantly worse. so thus via retrival failure absense of sufficient cues leads to forgetting
futrther research by godden sand baddely found ppts who learnt word lists whilst under water were more likely to remember those words when asked to recall them in same context. this is compared to groups who were aksed to learn their words on water nd recall on land or vice versa. Recall for mistmatch was 40% lower
L; This is a strength because more supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation.Evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs both in real life situations and in controlled conditions
Weakness of retrieval failure - counterpoint to baddleys research
P; A limitation of the research, however, is that Baddeley (1997) argues that context effects are actually not very strong, especially in everyday life. Different contexts have to be very different indeed before an effect is seen.
EE: For example, it would be hard to find and environment as different from land as underwater. In contrast, learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in too much forgetting because these environments are not different enough.
L: This means that retrieval failure due lack of contextual cues may not actually explain much everyday forgetting.
strength of retrival failure - practical applications
P; one strength of retrival failure is its practical applucations
E; eg in the cog interview the police use what we know from retrival failure to help witnesses remember more accurate details abourt an event. this includes by reconstructing the scene both mentally and physically in order to provide both environmental and emotional cues that could jog the witnesses memory
E; furthermore tv programmes like crimewatch produce reconstructions and broadcast them live s was used in murder of danille jones in 2001 and ultimiatley lead to a succesful conviction
L; thus our understanding of cue dep forgetting and retrival failure has had a positive impact on policing and has contributed to many offenders being brough to justice
Limitation - recall vs recognition
P;A further limitation is that research suggests that context effects may depend on the type of memory being tested.
E: Godden and Baddeley (1980) repeated their underwater experiment but asked whether they recognised a word read to them, rather than retrieving the word for themselves.
E; Under these circumstances, there was no context-dependent effect; performance was the same across all four conditions.
L; Therefore, retrieval failure may be a limited explanation for forgetting because it only applies when a person has to recall information for themselves, rather than recognise it.
