Retrieval Failure due to Absence of Cues (AQA AS Psychology)

Cue-dependent forgetting

• A cue is a hint or trigger that can help retrieve a memory

• Cues can be meaningful or indirect

  • An indirect cue could be external (linked to the environment/surroundings) or internal (linked to mood/emotions)

• A cue is placed in the memory store at the same time as the information to be remembered

Retrieval failure

• If there are not enough cues a person may forget certain memories, this is called retrieval failure:

  • The memory is still available but it is not accessible, due to the absence of cues

Encoding-specificity principle

• Tulving 1983 proposed that if a cue is to be helpful, in remembering information, then it must be:

  • present during encoding

  • present during retrieval

• If the cue does not meet the criteria then the information may be forgotten

• Many cues have a meaningful link to the information forming the memory

• Other cues can be encoded at the time of learning that are not meaningful:

  • Context-dependent forgetting

  • State-dependent forgetting

Context-dependent forgetting

• Context-dependent forgetting occurs when recall depends on an external cue, e.g. the environment/surroundings

• Research carried out by Godden and Baddeley (1975) investigated the effect of contextual cues on deep-sea divers:

  • The researchers aimed to investigate whether memory was better for words learned and recalled in the same environment or in different environments (the contexts being land or water)

  • The sample comprised 18 participants (13 males and 5 females) from a university diving club

  • Participants were asked to learn a set of words either on land or under water and were then asked to recall these words underwater either on land or underwater

  • There were four conditions to the independent variable:

    • 1) learning words on land/recalling on land

    • 2) learning words on land/recalling underwater

    • 3) learning underwater/recalling underwater

    • 4) learning underwater/recalling on land

  • The results showed that words learned underwater were better recalled underwater and words learned on land were better recalled on land

  • In short, context is key for retrieval to happen, the flip side of which is that without the right context for retrieval, forgetting is more likely

State-dependent forgetting

• State-dependent forgetting occurs when recall depends on an internal cue, e.g.

  • the feelings/emotions involved (feeling happy, sad, angry, distressed etc.)

  • the physiological state of the person (feeling drunk, drugged, tired etc.)

• Alcohol is often used to induce certain emotions or feelings:

  • Goodwin et al. (1969) investigated the effect of recall when participants were under the influence of alcohol or when they were sober:

    • Male participants learnt a set of words either drunk or sober and were asked to recall the set of words 24 hours later when either drunk or sober again

    • The results showed that information learned when under the influence of alcohol was recalled better when the participant was under the influence of alcohol (i.e. in the same state = drunk!)

• Carter and Cassaday (1998) performed a similar experiment involving antihistamine drugs which have a sedative effect

  • They found that recall of lists of words was higher when within the same state (i.e. learning word lists on antihistamine and recalling word lists on antihistamine)

Evaluation

Strengths

• There is good real-world application to the theory, e.g.

  • studying for exams should be conducted in the same room in which the exam is to take place to aid recall

  • This means that the theory has good external validity

Limitations

• Baddeley (1977) argued that the effect of context is not very strong in real-world situations

  • It would be difficult to find such extremely contrasting contexts as land and water (Godden and Baddeley) in real life

  • This means that retrieval failure due to a lack of contextual cues may not be a good model to explain forgetting

• Many of the studies involve learning lists of words which is an artificial task, meaning that the studies lack ecological validity and real-world application