Forgetting

Forgetting

1. Interference

   • Occurs when 2 pieces of information conflict with each other, resulting in forgetting 1 or both in some distortion of memory
   • Explanation for forgetting in TLM
   • Types
     • Retroactive Interference
       • New information interferes with old
     • Proactive Interference
       • Old information interferes with new
   • McGeoch & McDonald 1931
     • Researched whether similarity of information leads to greater interference
     • Participants learned and recall a list of adjectives. Split into experimental groups. Apart from control group, other groups had to learn other lists. Control group had highest recall. Experimental groups = more interference when material was similar to the list of adjectives
   • Evaluation
     • Evidence from lab studies (McGeoch & McDonald)
     • Lab experiments carried out to investiagte use artifical materials which makes interference more likely in this setting than in real-life situations
     • Stimulated research
       • Tulving and Psotka (1971)
         • Participants given a cued recall task and recall rose to 70%

2. Retrieval Failure

   • People may forget because of insufficient cues
   • Memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue is provided
     • A cue is a 'trigger' of information that allows us to access a memory
   • Context-Dependent Retrieval
     • Smith (1979)
     • Context acts as a cue for recall
     • Participants learned a list of words in basement
       • Next day, some tested in basement and some in a different room
         • Recall highest for those tested in basement room
   • State-Dependent Retrieval
     • The state an individual is in when they're encoding plays a role in retrieval
     • Goodwin et al (1969)
     • Hid things (like money) around house when participants were drunk - participants encoded information when drunk
       • Participants unsuccessful at finding when sober
         • Could find things when drunk again
   • Evaluation
     • Supporting evidence
       • Increases validity
     • Questioning context effects
       • Learning something on one room and recalling it in another is unlikley to result in much forgetting - environments are not that different