Psychology 12 Mark Question

Discuss the two explanations for forgetting and refer to Martin’s experiences in your answer. (12 marks)

One explanation for forgetting is interference theory. This is the principle that forgetting is due to information in the LTM becoming confused with other information during coding. There are two types of interference: proactive interference (old information disrupting the recall of new information) and retroactive interference (new information disrupting the recall of old information). Martin is experiencing proactive interference - the memory of the French word for chair (old information) is disrupting his memory of the Spanish word for chair (new information). A study that supports the interference explanation of forgetting is supported by Schmidt et al (2000) who studied the influence of retroactive interference on memory of street names learned in early childhood. He found that there was a positive correlation between the number of times the participants had moved house and the number of street names forgotten.

However the interference theory is critisised because it only explains forgetting when two pieces of information are similar and learnt simultaneously, for example, Martin learning both French and Spanish at school. This isn’t a situation that happens very often and therefore it is said that this explanation can not explain forgetting in the majority of real life settings. Although research into this theory shows interference, it fails to explain the cognitive processes that are involved. Most research is also conducted in a lab setting - the use of artificial tasks, such as learning word pairs, doesn’t relate to relate to real life scenarios so therefore lacks mundane realism.

There is more research however to support the second explanation of forgetting - cue dependent forgetting. Cue dependent forgetting refers to when information in the LTM can not be accessed; the recall of these is dependent on retrieval cues, for example, the labelling on a filing cabinet. We can see that Martin also experiences this type of forgetting because when his mum gives him a cue (the first letter of the Spanish word for chair) he can often recall the word correctly. The two types of cue dependent forgetting are context dependent failure (when the external environment is different is at recall than at coding) and state-dependent failure (when the internal environment of the individual is different at recall than at coding). Godden and Baddeley (1975) tested the context dependent failure theory. They gathered a group of participants to learn a group of words either on land or underwater and tested the memory of these words in land or underwater. He found that for those who learnt words on land, their recall of words was better on land than it was underwater - and vice versa.

Research into cue dependent forgetting has lead to