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Strengths and Weaknesses of Cue-Dependant Forgetting Theory

Its part of a 12 mark question on the theory, I have done the rest but find any for the theory, only a related study.

+ve rep (after midnight) for anyone who can help, you have no idea how much it will help

Thanks :h:

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Anyone?

Flashbulb memories?

Uhmmm

Look into Elizabeth Loftus' stuff? I can't really remember much about this topic (No pun intended).

Oh wait you're looking for an actual theory. Hmm....

Reply 3

Fuzzpig

http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=149603

might help.

Reply 4

LadySmythe

No pun taken.

Its the one involving context and state dependant forgetting. Lets get you over to Grammer then you'll remember :awesome:

and the complunsery study behind it is Godden & Baddeley (1975) (for context dependant anyway)

Reply 5

Fuzzpig

Ah yes, it is Tulving,

Cue-Dependent Forgetting

Tulving says State-Dependant Forgetting and Context-Dependant Forgetting are both examples of Cue-Dependant Forgetting. Retrieved cues are either encoded with the material to be remembered when it’s first learnt, or can be used as prods when we are searching our memories. Tulving says we fail to retrieve something if these cues fail to match what is encoded in our memories.

State-Dependent Forgetting

If we learn something when we are feeling happy/sad/drunk, we will be able to remember what we have learnt when we are feeling happy/sad/drunk again, but not when we are in a different state.

Examples:

Remembering many bad things when we’re in a bad mood.

Not being able to remember sad things when we’re happy.

Remembering all the things someone has done in the past to anger you when you are annoyed by them but raving about them when they please you.

Context Dependent Forgetting

If we learn something in a particular situation then we will be able to recall something in a similar situation, however, we may have difficulty in recalling it in a different situation. E.g. we recognise our dentist at a garden party but we forget his name and who he is. We have no difficulty remembering this when we are in his surgery.

Case Studies

Abernethy (1940)

Abernethy asked one group of Participants to learn and recall something in one room and then asked a second group of participants to learn in one room and recall in another. They found the first group did much better.

Godden and Baddeley

Godden and Baddeley asked divers to learn word lists either on land or under water. They were then asked to recall the words either in the same context, or in a different context. They found that where they had to recall words in the same context as they had been learnt there was a 30% improvement. This was a dramatic change, in real life there may be smaller but still important effects.

Tulving’s Encoding Specificity Principle (ESP)

This refers to the problem of how closely released the encoding cue and retrieval cue must be for the latter to be effective. Tulving says cues only help us to retrieve information if they have been encoded (taken in) at the same time as learning takes place.

In the following study, the cues were encoded at the same time as learning took place.

Tulving and Pearlstone (1966)

The contextual cue in this study was the category name of the words that the participants learnt. They were read lists of different numbers of words. They were given the category name and asked to memorise the exemplars e.g. the category name “Animal” would include the exemplar “Dog”. Half the participants used free recall, that is, they wrote down the words they could remember on a blank piece of paper. The others were given the category names as cues and they recalled many more words. They did particularly well with the very long lists. When the free recall group were also given category names their recall also improved because the category names helped them access material that was available to them.

Reply 6

LadySmythe

It doesn't help :sad:

But thank you (the 1st source)

I just have no idea how to evaluate the theory in simple terms of strengths and weaknesses. I've evaluated the rest..

Reply 7

Fuzzpig

Then what are you stuck on exactly?

Reply 8

Fuzzpig

You use the studies to criticise it, and criticise the support as your AO2, - talk about reality and context of where the study took place.
Are we really learning things in every day life as lists? In a specific place? Why do we have flash bulb memories?

Reply 9

LadySmythe

http://moodle.southdevon.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=61920

If that doesn't show, I'll give you my username and password to view it. I trust you :wink:

Reply 10

Fuzzpig

you could screen shot it and send it to me?

Reply 11

LadySmythe

aliluvschoc

I was sort of on the right track then, I started stating strengths and weaknesses of the related studies in terms of generalisability etc but I thought coz I wasn't stating the S & W of the theiry that I was going wrong.

Reply 12

LadySmythe

I've done the 1st bullet point, just need to do the 2nd

Reply 13

Fuzzpig

That's the generic psychology essay answer.

Grab a study that is used as support for your theory, explain what happened
Talk about how easy it is to apply to real life situations and contexts
Talk about how aspects can't be generalised
Talk about the participants. Are they representative of the entire population?

When trying to state whether a theory is useful in your As/A level, going down the rout of actually talking about how it's support is flawed is the way to get the marks, provided you get your AO1 marks by correctly talking about every part and level of the theory, and describing how it works.

Sorry that's not very helpful lol

edit: also add in what the theory itself fails to explain, regardless of studies. In this case, you're looking at your flashbulb memories.

Reply 14

LadySmythe

aliluvschoc

Thank you so much

My exams in like 2 weeks and I have no idea how to answer questions. Studies are starting to mix as well

It is helpful, dw :h:

I think I might ask my teacher to go over exam technique when we get back. Remind me to give you rep either midnight or tomorrow. I've already given it today to get someone to join the revs group.

Reply 15

Fuzzpig

You'll need to cross over with another theory of forgetting, is this Freud and repression or something?
State the support and weaknesses of that study, and balance you're argument between. You might add lesser support from another theory to get more AO2 critical marks.

Reply 16

LadySmythe

I dunno, Freuds in the next module I think. I compared it to Trace decay

Reply 17

Fuzzpig

Loz17

Thank you so much

My exams in like 2 weeks and I have no idea how to answer questions. Studies are starting to mix as well

It is helpful, dw :h:

I think I might ask my teacher to go over exam technique when we get back. Remind me to give you rep either midnight or tomorrow. I've already given it today to get someone to join the revs group.

A level psychology is really a memory game. :yes:

Lol I just hope I can help, as I've been through the As level before so should hopefully still have some clue of how to do it >.>

Reply 18

Fuzzpig

Loz17

I dunno, Freuds in the next module I think. I compared it to Trace decay

Oh =/

Read up on Freud's theory of repression, that's not got any studies so can just give you a couple of sentences to add for some AO1, and a little bit of judging for AO2. (A weakness of Repression Theory is that it can't be supported by studies very easily!)

I've forgotten the Trace Decay Theory to be honest. :p: