retrieval failure

Question 1

Supporting evidence

Answer 1

P-Large body of supporting research for the retrieval failure explanation for forgetting
E-Studies by Carter and Cassaday and Godden and Baddeley are examples of this research.
E-One prominent researcher, Eysenck goes as far to argue retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM
E-This is a strength because supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation
L-This is especially true when the evidence shows retrieval failure occurs in real life situations as well as in highly controlled conditions.

Question 2

Questioning context effects

Answer 2

P-Baddeley argues that context effects are not actually very strong, especially in real life
E-Different contexts would have to be very different before an effect is seen
E-For example, it would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater. In contrast, learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because these environments are generally not different enough
L-This is a limitation because it means the real life applications of retrieval failure due to contextual cues don’t actually explain much forgetting

Question 3

Recall vs recognition

Answer 3

P-The context effect may be related to the kind of memory being tested
E-Godden and Baddeley replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of recall
E-Participants had to say whether or not they recognised a word read to them from the list, instead of retrieving it themselves
L-When recognition was tested, there was no context dependent effect and performance was the same in all conditions which is a further limitation of context effects because it means the presence or absence of cues only affects memory when it’s tested in a certain way