Explanations for forgetting:Retrieval failure -A-Level Psychology

Retrieval failure

-is a form of forgetting when the necessary cues to access memory aren’t present.The memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue is provided.

-when information is initially stored ,the associated cues are also stored at the same time.

Cue-a trigger of information that allows us to access a memory.They may be external or internal .

Encoding specificity principle:

-Endel Tulving(1983) summarised a pattern observed in findings of previous retrieval failure research.He summarised this as the ESP which states that if a cue is to help us to recall information it has to present at encoding and at retrieval.If cues are different at these two stages there will be some forgetting.

-Some cues are linked to the material to be remembered in a meaningful way e.g mnemonics.Other cues are also encoded at the time of learning but not in a meaningful way e.g context-dependent forgetting and state-dependent forgetting.

Context-dependent forgetting:

Godden and Baddeley(1975) carried out a study of deep sea divers working underwater.This situation is critical and divers need to remember instructions given before diving.

Procedure-The divers learnt a list of words either underwater or on land and then had to recall these words either underwater or on land.This created 4 conditions.

Findings-Two conditions had matching environmental contexts of learning and recall,the other two did not.In non-matching conditions accurate recall was 40% lower.The external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall which cause retrieval failure.

State-dependent forgetting:

Procedure-Carter and Cassaday(1988) gave antihistamine drugs (for treating hay fever) to their participants.The drugs had a mild sedative effect making the participants drowsy.The participants had to learn a list of words and a passage of prose and then recall the information.There were 4 conditions

Findings-In the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall ,performance was worse.So when cues are absent,then there is more forgetting.

Evaluation:

Supporting evidence-There are a lot of research studies providing evidence for retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting.This is a strength because more supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation.Evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs both in real life situations and in controlled conditions e.g a lab.

Questioning context effects-Baddeley(1997) argued that context effects aren’t very strong in real life.In order to see an actual effect in retrieval failure the contexts have to be very different and that it is very hard to do .This is a limitation as it means that real life applications of retrieval failure due to contextual cues don’t explain much forgetting.

Recall vs Recognition-Godden and Baddeley(1980) replicated their underwater study with a recognition test instead of a recall test.There was no context-dependent effect and performance was the same in all four conditions.The test didn’t require any recall.This is another limitation of context effects as it suggests that the presence/absence of cue only affects memory when you test it in a certain way.

Problems with the ESP-the ESP can’t be tested and leads to a form of circular reasoning.There is no way to independently establish whether or not the cues has really been encoded.