Retrieval Failure

What is retrieval failure?

Forgetting due to not having sufficient cues to access memory at the time of recall

What is a cue?

A trigger of information that allows us to access a memory

What are the two kinds of internal cue?

• External: environmental context

• Internal: mood or degree of drunkenness

What is the Encoding Specificity Principle?

• If a cue is going to be helpful, it has to be:

  1. Present at encoding

  2. Present at retrieval

• If cues available at coding and retrieval are different, forgetting will occur

What is context-dependant forgetting?

Recall depends on external cue (weather or place)

What is state-depedant forgetting?

Recall depends on internal cue (upset, drunk)

What research did Godden and Baddeley (1975) do on context-dependant forgetting?

• Deep-sea divers learned and later recalled a list of words under 4 different combinations of on and off land

• Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions

• This shows that, when external cues available at learning are different to those at recall, this can lead to retrieval failure

What research did Carter & Cassaday (1998) do on state-dependant forgetting?

• Antihistamines were given to participants, who became slightly drowsy → this changed the internal physiological state from being awake and alert

• Participans then learned and recalled lists under 4 different combinations of being on the drug and not

• Performance on the memory test was significantly worse when the two internal states at encoding and recall were mismatched

• This shows when more forgetting occur when the state you are in at encoding differs from the state you are in at recall

What research did Aggleton & Waskett (1999) do on smell being a context-related cue?

• At the Jorvik Museum, York, visitors can experience what Jorvik, an old Viking town, was like, including the smells

• The smells helped people recall details of their trip to the museum more accurately, even after several years.

• This shows that smell can act as a context-related cue

What research did Baker et al. (2004) do on if gum enhances memory?

• Students were randomly placed into 4 groups with different combinations of learning with/without gum and recalling with/without gum.

• They had to learn the lists of 15 words in 2 minutes

• They recalled the words straight away, and 24 hours later

• Immediate recall only showed small differences between the group, but after 24 hours: biggest was 11 g-g, smallest 7 ng-g

• Shows gum may be a way to remember more if you chew it at the time of encoding and retrieval (internal states is the same at both times)

What are the strengths of retrieval failure?

• Real-world application

• Lots of research support

What are the limitations of retrieval failure?

• May not be able to explain all forgetting

• Limited explanation for forgetting

How does retrieval failure have real-world application?

• Baddeley suggests that cues may not have a strong effect on forgetting, but they are still worth paying attention to → when we have trouble remembering something, we can recall the environment in which we learned it in first

• Suggesting the theory has some value as it can help us improve recall

What research support is there for retrieval failure?

• Godden & Baddeley and Carter & Cassaday show that a lack of relevant cues at recall lead to state and context-dependant forgetting

• Vast amount of evidence shows retrieval failure happens in real life

How can retrieval failure not explain all forgetting?

• Baddeley (1997) argues that context effects are not very strong in everyday life → different contexts have to be very different before an effect is seen

• Suggests retrieval failure due to lack of contextual cues may not explain much everyday forgetting

How is retrieval failure a limited explanation for forgetting?

• Godden and Baddeley (1980) replicated their underwater experiment with the same 4 conditions, but participants had to say whether they recognised a word read to them instead of retrieving it themselves

• No context-dependant effect in recognition

• Suggests retrieval failure is limited as it only applies when a person has to recall information rather than recognise it