Explanations for forgetting: Interference - A-Level Psychology

Interference:

-occurs when two pieces of information conflict with each other resulting in forgetting of one or both memories or distortion in memory.

-explanation for forgetting in LTM.Any forgetting of LTMs can be because it can’t be accessed even though it is available meaning that interference makes it harder to locate the memory.

Types of interference:

-It is likely that the two memories that are interfering  with each other were stored at different times.

Proactive interference:

-happens when older memories that are already stored disrupt the recall of newer memories.

E.g a teacher has learnt so many names in the past she struggles to remember the names in her current class.

Retroactive interference:

-happens when newer memories disrupt the recall of older memories already stored.

E.g a teacher has learned so many new names this year that she struggles remembering the name of previous students.

Effects of similarity:

-The degree of forgetting is greater when the memories are similar meaning that interference is worse.

John McGeoch and William Mcdonald(1931)

-They studied retroactive interference by changing the amount of similarity between 2 sets of materials.Participants had to learn a list of 10 words until they could remember all of them.Then they learned a new list.The six groups learnt different types of lists.They found that the most similar material produced the worst recall meaning that interference is strongest when memories are similar

Evaluation:

Evidence from lab studies – interference is one of the most consistently demonstrated findings.Most of these studies show that PI and RI are common ways information can be forgotten from the LTM.This is a strength because lab experiments have control over variables so suggest that the results are valid.

Real life studies-Baddeley and Hitch(1977) wanted to see if interference was a better explanation for forgetting than the passage of time.They asked rugby players to recall the names of teams they had played in that season so far every week.Some players had missed games so had less names to recall.Findings showed that recall didn’t depend on how long ago the games took place but the number of games they had played.This showed that interference can be applied to everyday situations and there is high ecological validity.

Artificial materials-There is a greater chance that interference occurs in a lab than in real life situations due to the fact that the stimulus material used are normally a list of words.This is different to what people remember on a daily basis such as birthdays and recipes.This is a limitation because the use of artificial tasks makes interference more likely in the lab which means that interence isn’t applicable to forgetting in everyday life.

Time between learning-lab experiments are designed to maximise the possibility of interference.For practical reasons the time between learning and recalling the list of words is relatively short.The whole experience of learning  and recalling should be around an hour long.This means that the results don’t reflect the actual process of interference.