Explanations for Forgetting

Explanations for forgetting:

Explains forgetting in the long term memory

• Retro Active Interference: try to remember old thing and new memory gets in the way

• Pro Active Interference: try to remember new thing and old memory gets in the way

Degree of forgetting is greater when the memories are similar

John McGeoch and William McDonald 1931:

Studied retroactive interference by changing the similarity of 2 sets of materials

Ppts had to learn a list of 10 words, once they remember all of them they had to learn a new list.

6 groups did this list studying.

= when similar material produced —> the worst interference took place

AO3:

Evidence from lab studies:

Interference is a consistent finding from the study.

Most studies show RI and PI are common in ways LTM info can be forgotten.

Lab exp. Have a lack of extraneous variables so suggest results are valid

Artificial Materials:

Greater chance interference happens in a lab than RL.

Due to fact stimulus material (a list of words) is not common in everyday life

Everyday tasks to remember may be birthdays and recipes

Limitation because artificial tasks makes interference more likely in a lab but isn’t completely applicable to everyday forgetting

Real Life Application:

Baddley and Hitch asked rugby players to recall the names of teams they’ve recently played.

Some players did not recall as many due to missing games

Interference showed it did matter how many games had been played and not how much time had passed

This shows interference can be applied to everyday situations = high ecological validity