Retrieval Failure: Theory Of Forgetting Flashcards
(15 cards)
What is the Encoding Specificity Principle (ESP) by Tulving and Pearlstone?
Cues needed to be encoded at the time of learning
Memory is most effective if the information that was present at encoding is also available at the time of retrieval.
What did Godden and Baddeley (1975) demonstrate in their study?
Environment aids recall
Deep sea divers learned words on land or underwater, showing that recall was better in the environment where learning occurred.
What is retrieval failure?
Inability to access information due to absence of cues
Cues that were present at encoding must also be available for effective retrieval.
What did Smith (1979) show about recall in different environments?
Thinking in the same room where learning occurred aids recall
This finding suggests that environmental context plays a significant role in memory retrieval.
According to Goodwin et al. (1969), how does state-dependent forgetting work?
Recall accuracy is affected by internal states
Participants remembered lists better when they were in the same state (drunk or sober) as when they learned the information.
What is the significance of internal cues in memory retrieval?
Bodily states experienced during learning affect recall
Examples include mood and physiological state.
What did Tulving and Psotka (1971) contribute to the understanding of forgetting?
Interference is due to absence of cues
They indicated that more lists of information could lead to interference when cues are not present.
What type of design did Goodwin et al. (1969) use in their experiment?
Independent group design
This design helped to compare recall accuracy between different states (drunk vs sober).
Context-dependent forgetting
Forgetting due to a lack of environmental (external) cues that were present at the time of learning
Gotten and Baddeley (AO1 CDF)
Studied deep sea divers who learned a list of words on land or underwater where they either recalled the list in the same or different environment (e.g. land, land, or land, underwater etc).
They found when the divers learned and recalled the word list in the same environment, they had better recall than in different environments (14% better recall).
Strength of CDF- revision
Smith: found students had better recall when thinking in the same room where the original learning took place.
Supports G+B, matching external context with context at learning can improve memory retrieval.
Suggests practical implications for effective revision. Reliable as help individuals in wider world to have better recall
Limitation of CDF- lacks ecological validity
Smith + Vela: meta analysis on CDF studies, found context effects not as strong in real life memory tasks and CDF less likely to occur when info has meaning or takes place in a familiar environment.
Contradicts retrieval failure. Suggests effects of CDF not as significant in everyday memory as suggested. So lacks validity because cannot be used in real life settings accurately.
State-dependent Forgetting
The internal bodily cues that are experienced at the time of learning and how they affect our ability to recall information, e.g. mood, physiological state. When states are different, it is more difficult to retrieve information.
Goodwin et al (AO1, SDF)
Supports SDF. Asked male volunteers to learn a list of words when either drunk or sober (physiological state), and then recall the list 24 hours later in either the same or a different state. Found participants who learned and recalled the list in the same state (e.g. drunk, drunk, or sober, sober) had a more accurate recall.
Strength of retrieval failure- Tulving and Psotka
Studied participants who learned multiple word lists with different categories and found recall of earlier word lists worsened, however, when given cued recall e.g. category names, performance significantly improved.
Suggests improvements a result of cues present at time of learning (ESP) and that info is still stored in memory but was temporarily inaccessible due to a lack of appropriate retrieval cues.
Supports ESP, demonstrates how forgetting can be reversed when suitable cues are provided.
