Retrieval Failure

Retrieval Failure

1. The encoding specificity principle

   • Tulving and Thomson (1973)
     • Proposed that memory is the most efficient if information that was present at encoding is also available at the time of retrieval
     • The encoding specificity principle further states that a cue doesn't have to be exactly right but the closer the cue is to the original item, the more useful it will be
   • Tuvling and Pearlstone (1966)
     • Demonstrated the value of retrieval cues in a study where participants had to learn 48 words belonging to 12 categories
       • Each word was presented as category and word (eg fruit-apple, fruit-orange)
     • Participants either had to recall as many words as they could (free recall) or they were given cue in the form of the category names (cued recall)
       • In the free recall condition 40% of the words were recalled on average, whereas in the cued recall condition participants recalled 60% of the words
         • This is evidence of cues that have been explicitly or implicity encoded at the time of learning and have a meaningful link to learning material
         • There is another type of cue which is not related to the learning material in any meaningful way
           • Whenever any information is learned, we also often remember where we are (environmental context) or how we felt (the emotional state at the time)
           • This information is encoded to varying degrees along with the material learned and is sometimes the case that being reminded of a particular place or mood can act as a trigger (or cue) to help access a memory

2. Context-dependent forgetting

   • Abernethy (1940)
     • Arranged for a group of students to be tested before a certain course began
       • They were then tested each week, some students were tested in their teaching room by their usual instructor, whereas others were tested by a different instructor
         • Those tested by the same instructor in the same room performed the best, presumably familiar things (room and instructor) acted as a memory cue
           • Abernethy found that superior students were least affected by the changes and inferior students the most
     • 4 experimental conditions in this study
   • Godden and Baddeley (1975)
     • Investigated the effect of contextual cues
     • The researchers recruited scuba divers as participants and arranged for them to learn a set of words on land or underwater so there were again 4 experimental conditions
       • The results again showed that the highest recall occurred when the initial context matched the recall environmental (eg learning on land and recalling on land)

3. State-dependent forgetting

   • The mental state you are in at the same time of learning can also act as a cue
   • Goodwin et al (1969)
     • Asked male volunteers to remember a list of words when they were either drunk or sober (those in the drunk condition imbibed about 3 times the UK drink driving limit)
       • The participants were asked to recall the lists after 24 hours when some were sober but others had to get drunk again (for experimental purposes)
   • The recall scores suggest that information learned when drunk is more available when in the same state later

4. There is a lot of research support

   • The examples of research shows the wealth of research evidence that has documented the importance of retrieval cues on memory
   • Such research includes lab, field and natural experiments as well as anecdotal evidence and thus has relevance to everyday memory experiences

5. Real-world application

   • Abernethy's research suggests that you ought to revise in the room where you will be taking the exams
   • Smith (1979) showed that just thinking of the room where you did your original learning (mental reinstatement) was as efficient as actually being in the same room at the time of retrieval

6. The danger of circularity

   • Baddeley (1977)
     • Encoding specificity principle is impossible to test because it is circular, if a stimulus leads to the retrieval of a memory then it must have been encoded in memory
       • If it does not lead to retrieval of a memory, then according to the encoding specificity principle, it cant have been encoded in memory
         • But it is impossible to test for an item that hasnt been encoded in memory so this cannot be proven

7. Retrieval cues dont always work

   • Milgram's research, the issue is that information you are learning is related to a lot more than just the cues
   • Smith and Vela (2001) context effects are largely eliminated when learning meaningful material, not to say that retrieval cues are irrelevant to memory there are many instances where they explain everyday forgetting but they dont explain everything