explanations for forgetting- Interference and retrieval failure

explanations for forgetting- Interference and retrieval failure

1. Interference

   • McGeoch and McDonald
     • Looked into the effects of similarity in forgetting. participant were all told to learn a list of words until they had 100% accuracy they were then split into six groups; synonyms, antonyms, words unrelated to the originals, nonsense syllables, three digit numbers and no list and were then asked to recall the first a week later
     • Findings: Those who learnt the semantically similar words had the worst recall of the first list and those who did the best was the group that didn't learn a second list.
     • AO3: The lab study was very scientific so has a high internal validity
     • AO3: Participants were asked to complete artificial tasks. people don't need to learn lists very often so it lacks mundane realism.
     • Real life studies: Baddeley and hitch found that with rugby players time didn't effect forgetting it was the number of games between. shows this study can be applied to some everyday situations.
   • proactive interference
     • when old memories interfere with new memories
   • retroactive interference
     • when new memories interfere with old memories
   • Interference can be overcome by using cues eg tulving and psotka

2. Retrieval failure

   • Encoding specificity principle: Tulving says we need a cue in order to remember information and this cue must be present at coding. these cues could be the context, the state.
     • Context-dependent forgetting
       • Godden and Baddeley did a deep sea divers study where they had divers learn a list of words and remember the list. They did this in four different conditions. eg learn on land recall on land, learn on land recall underwater, learn underwater recall on land and learn underwater and recall underwater.
         • Findings: accurate recall was 40% worse in non-matching conditions
       • AO3: Baddeley said the contexts need to be drastically different before an effect is seen hence the deep sea divers. This means it lacks real life application.
     • state-dependent forgetting
       • Carter and Cassaday: had participants learn and recall a list of words on and off antihistamines in 4 conditions two matching and two mismatched.
         • Findings: those who learnt in mismatched conditions did worse.
     • AO3: Good supporting evidence from Godden and Baddeley and Carter and Cassaday. This increases the validity of this explanation.

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