Proactive and Retroactive Interference- explanations of forgetting

what is interference

Forgetting because one memory blocks another, causing one or both memories to be distorted or forgotten.

when does interference happen?

when different pieces of info become confused in memory making it hard to remember things correctly

what are the two types of interference?

proactive and retroactive

what is proactive interference?

old info makes it hard to remember new info, e.g. if you learnt French before Spanish, you may use French words by accident when trying to speak Spanish

what is retroactive interference?

new info makes it hard to recall old info, e.g. after learning Spanish you may struggle to remember French words you learnt earlier

when is interference more likely to occur?

when the pieces of info are similar and there is no time gap between learning the two sets of info. New info can sometimes overwrite old info

what is response competition?

when similar memories compete when we try to access them at the moment of retrieval. overtime, as more events happen, forgetting can increase due to interference

experimental evidence for retroactive interference

• strong research evidence

• McGeoch and McDonald (1931) conducted an experiment where participants learned a list of 10 words to perfection, then learned a new list which varied in similarity to the first, e.g. synonyms, antonyms.

• When asked to recall the OG list, recall was worse the more similar the list was, with synonyms dropping recall from 100% to around 12%.

• Suggests that similarity increases forgetting due to interference, especially retroactive interference, as predicted by the interference explanation of forgetting

use of artificial tasks

• limitation- the use of artificial tasks to assess forgetting, e.g. word lists and nonsense syllables

• don't reflect real-life memory which involves more meaningful material

• so lab experiments are considered low in ecological validity

• however, Schmidt et al. (2000) challenged this criticism by questioning participants about their childhood homes

• found that those who moved homes more often recalled fewer street names from their childhood neighbourhood- demonstrates that new memories can interfere with older ones in everyday life

interference in real life- Baddeley and Hitch

• support for interference from real-life research, which improves ecological validity

• Baddeley and Hitch (1977) investigated retroactive interference by asking rugby players to recall the names of teams they had recently played

• Players who played the most games showed worse recall of earlier teams

• suggest that interference happens in everyday memory, not just labs, supporting interference theory and shows it can explain forgetting in natural situations