MEMORY
Explanations for Forgetting
TASK
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Read the AO1 information on Retrieval Failure
(p25&26)
Turn this information into pictures to represent what it
shows
You can use as many pictures, symbols, colours, numbers,
abbreviations, acronyms, individual letters (e.g. your
own key to represent certain words) as you like
You can use a maximum of 15 whole words to help you
By the end of the time limit, you should be able to
explain the Retrieval Failure theory and its research
using your pictures only
DISCUSSION TASK
TASK: How can you use this
information to aid your own
learning and exam
performance?
Give at least 3 suggestions &
write them onto your booklet
3mins
Practical applications
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A strength of the retrieval failure explanation of forgetting is that it
has practical applications.
This is because people who need to learn and recall information
(e.g. students) should ensure that the cues present when
learning/revising information are also present when recalling the
information.
For example, when revising you should recreate cues that will also
be present when in the exam hall e.g. no noise, sitting at a desk, not
hungry etc. Research by Smith shows that even imagining the room
you were in when learning information is just as effective as being in
the same room, so students should imagine the room in which they
revised to trigger retrieval cues.
This suggests that this explanation has been beneficial to society.
Practical applications
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Another practical use of retrieval failure has been
in the development of the Cognitive Interview
Technique.
This technique (see later) was developed to help
retrieve accurate eyewitness testimony and uses the
principles of state- and context-dependent retrieval
to aid memory.
This again suggests that this explanation has been
useful in the real world.
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A strength of this explanation is that it can be seen as a
better theory of forgetting than interference theory.
This is because Tulving & Psotka found initially that the more
word lists that pts learnt, the less they remembered. This
implied that the information had interfered with each other
leading to forgetting.
However, when given category names as cues, pts recalled
about 70% of the words, regardless of the number of lists
given.
This demonstrated therefore that the information was in
memory (available) but inaccessible until given cues, showing
that retrieval failure is the most logical explanation of
forgetting.
There is much research support to demonstrate that a
lack of retrieval cues lead to forgetting.
 For example, research by Godden and Baddeley
found…….
/Bower found……. (pick one of these and SUMMARISE
/Smith found…..
findings only)
There is a variety of research from both lab and field
experiments, including research using meaningful material
(e.g. where you put your keys!)
 This suggests that this is a valid explanation.
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On the other hand, it can be argued that like most
memory experiments, the research lacks ecological
validity.
The majority of research support for retrieval
failure uses unrealistic memory tests such as word
lists which therefore not does not represent the
complexity of recall life forgetting.
Challenge AO3 A LEVEL
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A limitation of cue-dependent forgetting is that it
can lead to a circular argument.
For example, Baddeley suggested that you cannot
test the ESP because It leads to circular reasoning.
If in an experiment a cue leads to successful recall,
this suggests that it was present at learning. If
however it does not lead to recall then we assume it
wasn’t present at learning.
Consequently, both findings lead to support for the
explanation which makes it unfalsifiable!