Amnesia

retrieval induced forgetting

This is the finding that retrieving items from memory has the effect of impairing subsequent recall for related items (Anderson, Bjork & Bjork, 1994).

inhibition account

During the manipulation phase, attempting to retrieve targets from the category cue has the effect of suppressing activation levels of the related, untested (RP-) items, in order to resolve response competition. This suppression endures for at least 20 minutes, so these items are less accessible at the final test than items from the unpractised categories that have not needed to be suppressed, because they are not in competition with the tested items (as they are from different categories). The inhibition occurs during Phase 2 and what we see, in phase 4, is an enduring effect of this inhibition

Blocking account

Repeatedly practising retrieval of certain cue-target routes strengthens those routes to such an extent that accessing other targets from the same cue (i.e., the category cue) becomes very difficult – the strong routes block access to other routes. Under this account, the blocking effect occurs during the final test, when we try to retrieve all of the items from the category cue

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