Forgetting is a common process that occurs near enough every day. The general definition of forgetting is the inability to recall

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Kerry Phillips.                12th November 2004.

                

Assignment 2.

a) Forgetting is a common process that occurs near enough every day. The general      definition of forgetting is the inability to recall or recognise something that has been previously learned. Forgetting occurs in both short and long term memory, and several explanations have been put forward as to why forgetting occurs. There are two main theories concerning forgetting in long term memory.

        The first explanation was the decay theory, this suggests that information stored in memory can eventually fade away. There is an assumption that a memory trace in our brain disintegrates over time and so is lost. This idea of gradual deterioration comes with it’s criticisms.

         There is much research evidence surrounding this explanation of forgetting in long term memory. Lashley (1931) conducted some famous experiments, with training rats and removing certain sections of their brains; his research supports the view that long term memory may be related to physical decay. Another classic and well known study was conducted by Jenkins and Dallenbach (1924). They found that recall was better if participants slept through the retention interval, this way little information was entering their memory, and therefore displacement could not have occurred. At night there was no displacement and little forgetting – this illustrates that forgetting during the day must be due to displacement and as a result cannot be explained by the decay theory.

        Although, this study cannot be relied upon as valid – Jenkins and Dallenbach made a major methodical flaw in their experiment. The independent variable was whether or not the participant slept during the retention interval; the confounding variable was when the participants were tested for recall. The problem is that both of these variables occurred and the same time, and thus it is impossible to tell whether better recall was due to sleep in the retention interval, or the time of day when recall took place. It is, perhaps, also necessary to point out that this study is not very realistic – the information participants were asked to remember is not like it would be in real life, and therefore the experiment lacks ecological validity.

        Further investigation into the decay theory, and extending Jenkins and Dallenbach’s work, was Hockey et al. (1972), this study found that recall was better in the morning. This means that the original finding can be explained in terms of the time when testing took place rather than lack of displacement while asleep. Another criticism is that if decay is a major explanation for forgetting then why is it that we have so many long term memories? There is much evidence to suggest that memories can be very long lasting (Bahrick et al.) , this evokes the fact that decay is an unlikely explanation for most long term forgetting.  

        The final problem with this theory is that it is difficult to distinguish between the effects of decay and interference in long term memory. If something does disappear from memory – how can we tell whether it was due to decay, displacement or interference? To investigate this problem, a natural experiment (on rugby fixtures and the recall of the players) was conducted by Baddeley and Hitch (1977). If the decay theory was correct then all of the players should recall a similar percentage, as time alone should cause forgetting. Whereas, if the interference theory was correct, those players that played most games should forget proportionately more due to interference. The findings were that the more games players had played, the more they forget (proportionately). This supports the interference theory.

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        The second explanation that has been put forward for forgetting information in long term memory is commonly known as the interference theory. This idea was suggested in the 1950s, it refers to the tendency for one memory to  ‘interfere with’ the accurate retrieval of another (similar) memory.  There are two types of interference – proactive interference (PI), this is where past learning interferes with current attempts to learn something, and retroactive interference (RI), when current attempts to learn something interfere with past learning. Psychologists have found evidence of both these types of interference. A typical study of interference uses the ...

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