Forgetting: Retrieval Failure

Retrieval failure: is where information is available but cannot be recalled because of the absence of appropriate cues.

When we encode a new memory we also store information that occurred around it (cues), such as the way we felt or the place we were in.

Context dependent forgetting – External cues

Context dependent forgetting:

At the initial point of remembering something, you also take in information from the environment i.e. external cues. If these cues are absent when you try to retrieve this information, this leads to forgetting.

Godden & Baddeley (1975)

Gave deep sea divers lists of words to remember. Some learned them on the beach the others under 15 feet (4.5 metres) of water. Recall was best when the divers recalled the words in the same environment as they’d learned them. The context/environment is acting as a cue.

Baddeley himself realised that this experiment is extreme, the difference between land and sea. He realised that in real life it is rare for contexts to be so different as to be important. As a result context probably plays a minimal role in aiding recall.

Grant (1998)

Used a laboratory experiment with an independent measures design with a sample of 39 Americans. Students were tested 1 at a time. The 4 conditions were:

learn in silence, recall in silence – matching
learn in silence, recall in noise – non-matching
learn in noise, recall in noise – matching
learn in noise, recall in silence – non-matching

Each participant wore headphones. Those in noisy conditions listened to the background noise of a cafeteria which consisted of occasional distinct words/phrases and movement of chairs and dishes. The participants read a two-page, three-columned article on psychoimmunology, they were allowed to highlight or underline.

They were then asked to complete a 10 short-answer test and a 16 multiple- choice test (with 4 possible choices).

They found that performance on both tests were better when participants learned and retrieved information in matching environments. For example:

Mean average score in the short answer test when the participants were in matching silent study and silent test = 6.7
Mean average score in the short answer test when the participants were in mismatching noisy study and silent test = 4.6

Context dependent forgetting in real-life

A situation with which you’ll all be familiar. You go running upstairs to fetch something. On arriving in the bedroom you can’t for the life of you remember what it is you wanted. Returning to the kitchen the memory is recalled. On returning to the site where you had the initial thought your recall is triggered. When we look at EWT and the cognitive interview, we’ll see that reinstating context or sometimes, even returning a witness to the scene of the incident acts as a powerful trigger for recall.

Aggleton & Waskett (1999)

Carried out a study involving 45 people who were asked to remember features of the Jorvik Viking Centre in York, which recreates the city during the 10th century using not only sights and sounds but also highly distinctive smells.

The researchers concluded that those participants who were exposed again to the museum’s smells could recall their visits more accurately than those who relied on memory alone. This is evidence of context dependent memory, as the external cue of the smell, helped to trigger memories that were learned at the museum.

Baker et al (2004)

Two experiments examined whether chewing spearmint gum can affect the initial learning or subsequent recall of a word list. Comparing those participants in Experiment 1 who chewed gum at the learning or the recall phases showed that chewing gum at initial learning was associated with superior recall. In addition, chewing gum led to context-dependent effects as a switch between gum and no gum (or no gum and gum) between learning and recall led to poorer performance.

Tulving and Pearlstone (1966)

Got participants to recall 48 words that belonged to one of 12 categories. As each word was presented it was preceded by its category (cue):

Gem: sapphire, Gem: diamond, Gem: ruby etc…

If the cue was then present at recall (gem) then overall recall for the 48 words was 60%. If the cue was not present then recall fell to 40%.

In fact some psychologists believe that all forgetting is cue dependent. That is, we never really forget anything form our LTM. Provided some form of clue is given we could remember anything! This is the basis of the cognitive interview technique which we will cover in our next topic.

Some cues (as in Tulving & Pearlstone’s study) are linked directly to the material to be recalled. If I say ‘monotropy’ it is likely to trigger memories of Bowlby’s theory of attachments, of critical periods, internal working models and social releasers. This is because categories have a ‘meaningful link’ which acts as a trigger to other memories associated with that information.

State dependent remembering and forgetting

State dependent forgetting:

At the initial point of remembering something, you also take in the certain state/mood you are in i.e. internal cues. If these cues are absent when you try to retrieve this information, this leads to forgetting.

Our state of mind when learning can also act as a cue. The classic example is not remembering what you did at the party the night before due to the amount of alcohol consumed, but being able to remember all the embarrassing details the next time you’re in a similar state (of mind!). By the way this is Goodwin et al (1969), not personal experience! For example they found that participants who had hidden money or alcohol when drunk and were unable to remember where the next day, were able to find it the next time they were drunk.

Carter & Cassaday (1998)

Gave anti-histamines (that have a slightly sedative or tiring effect) to groups of participants, followed by a recall task. They were compared to a non-sedated control group. See the conditions below:

Learn on drug – recall on drug – Matched Condition
Learn on drug – recall without drug – Mismatched Condition
Learn without drug – recall without drug – Matched Condition
Learn without drug – recall on drug – Mismatched Condition

They found that participants best recalled words when they were in the same state of mind as when they learned the words. If they’d taken anti-histamines during encoding they best recalled them when they were on anti-histamines.

Evaluating Research in Retrieval Failure – Research: GRAVER & Theory: SAUNDERS

Research to support – There appears to be plenty of support for retrieval failure as outlined in the studies above.
Applications – Students should learn information in the same environment that they learned them e.g. exams etc. In addition, Grant’s study – more ecologically valid, recalling information in noisy compared to silent. Lots of students learn around noise and in silent conditions so this is more reflective of real life.
Reliability – High reliability due to high control in lab experiments such as Carter, Grant and Baddeley.

Subjective – difficult to measure abstract concept such as memory and forgetting. The Encoding specificity principle is impossible to measure as there is no way of independently establishing whether or not the cue has been encoded.
Ecological Validity – Baddeley’s experiment, under water compared to land. Not reflective of real life. Therefore the theory of context dependent forgetting may not explain how forgetting occurs in everyday settings such as going downstairs and then forgetting what you went downstairs for.
Applications – The applications can be hard to implement. For example, the idea of context dependent memory would mean that students should sit there exams in their own classroom. However, this would be hard to practically implement. You would need an examiner in every room. There would be posters on the wall which gave answers to the exams.
Takes a nomothetic approach and ignores individual differences – Research does not take this into consideration. Why is this a problem?