Explanations for forgetting: Retrieval failure

Explanations for forgetting: Retrieval failure

1. the reason people forget information may be because of insufficient cues. if the associated cues which are stored with the memory are not available at the time of recall, it may appear as if you have forgotten the information.

   • Supporting evidence - increases validity of an explanation, especially when the evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real-life situations as well as in highly controlled conditions of the lab
   • Questioning context effects - Baddeley argues context effects are actually not that strong, especially in real life. Different contexts have to be very different before an effect is seen. This is a limitation because it means that the real-life application of retrieval failure due to context cues don't actually explain much forgetting.
   • Recall vs recognition - Godden and Baddeley replicated their underwater experiment but used recognition test instead of recall. When recognition was tested there was non context-dependent effect; performance was the same for all four conditions. This is a further limitation because it means the presence or absence of cues only affects memory when it is tested in a certain way.

2. Encoding specificity principle

   • Tulving (1983) reviewed research into retrieval failure and summarised the pattern found as the ESP - stating that if a cue is to help us recall information it has to be present at encoding and at retrieval. If the cues available at encoding and retrieval are different, or entirely absent at retrieval, there will be some forgetting.

3. Context-dependent forgetting

   • GODDEN AND BADDELEY - divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land and then were asked to recall the words either underwater or on land. Four conditions were created: LL-RL, LL-RU, LU-RU, LU-RL
   • Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions as external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall and this led to retrieval failure

4. State-dependent forgetting

   • CARTER AND CASSADAY - gave anti-histamine drugs to their participants, resulting in a mild sedative effect making participants slightly drowsy. They had to learn a list of words then recall it, creating four conditions: LD-RD, LD-RN, LN-RN, LN-RD
   • performance on memory test was significantly worse where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall.