The Two Theories of Forgetting

The Two Theories of Forgetting

Retrieval failure is the failure to find an item of information

because we have insufficient clues or cues. The context where initial

learning takes place or the mood we were in may act as a cue later.

Lack of these cues will lead to greater forgetting.

Interference refers to the tendency for one memory to 'interfere with'

accurate retrieval of another memory. Proactive interference is when

the past material interferes with attempts to learn similar new

material, causing us to forget new material. Retroactive interference

is when current learning interferes with material already learned,

causing is to forget the material already learned.

In order to prevent forgetting it is important to consider why

forgetting occurs

The most frequent reason for forgetting information is difficulty in

transferring it from working memory to long-term memory. In addition,

we can forget because of an inability to recall information that is in

long-term memory.

There are many theories to consider which explain why forgetting

occurs, one of them being interference- When something gets in the way

of something else. When used in the study of forgetting it refers to

the tendency for one memory to 'interfere with' the accurate retrieval

of another memory. There are two types of interference, proactive and

retro active. PI is when past learning interferes with current

attempts to learn something. RI is when current attempts to learn

something interfere with past learning.

Support for interference theory comes form Jenkins and Dallenbach

(1924), who found that after learning lists of nonsense syllables,

participants ' recall was much better when intervening time had been

filled primarily with sleep rather than a comparable period of being

awake.

However, Tulving and Pstoka(1971) found that when participants in a

memory test were given cued recall the previous effects of

interference disappeared. This shows that interference effects may

simply mask what is actually in memory, i.e the information is there

but cannot be retrieved.

Another study which could explain forgetting is Retrieval failure,