Interference - Reasons for Forgetting

Interference - Reasons for Forgetting

1. Retroactive

   • Muller and Pilzecker (1900) were the first to identify retroactive interference effects.
   • Gave pps a list of nonsense syllables to learn for 6 minutes and then after a retention interval , asked participants to recall the list
   • Performance was worse if pps had been given an intervening task between initial learning and recall (they were shown three paintings and were asked to describe them)
   • Results; past learning interferes with current attempts

2. Proactive

   • Underwood (1957) showed that proactive interference could be as equally important
   • Analysed findings of studies where pps have to learn a series of words encountered later on in the sequence as well as lists of words encountered earlier on
   • If pps memorised 10 or more lists, then, after 24 hours, they remembered about 20% of what they learned. If they only learned one list recall was over 70%.
   • Results; current attempts to learn something interferes with past learning