Interference

What is interference?

Were two pieces of information disrupt each other, causing one or both to be forgotten/distorted in someway. Explains forgetting LTM which has unlimited capacity.

What is the difference between proactive and retroactive?

Proactive: older memory interferes with a new memory. Retroactive: new memory interferes with old memory.

What was the aim of McGeoch and McDonald?

Study the effect of similarity on retroactive interference.

What is the method used by M and M?

P’s remember a list of 10 words into 100% accurate. Learned new list: synonyms, antonyms, words unrelated, three digit numbers, and no new list (control). Asked to remember original list.

What was the result of M and M?

P’s who learned synonyms (more similar information to the original list) had worse recall.

What was the conclusions of M and M?

Suggest retroactive interference is worst if memories are similar, supporting the interference theory and increasing its validity as an explanation for forgetting.

What are the effects of similarity?

Proactive: previously stored information makes it harder to store new information that is similar. Retroactive: new information overwrite previous memories because of similarity.

What is Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve?

How long it takes someone to forget information when not recalled.