Psychology / Unit 6: Memory and Thinking
6.4 Retrieval and Forgetting
Notes
- Recall (retrieve with few cues, like an essay) is harder than recognition (identify among options, like multiple choice).
- Retrieval cues help. Context-dependent memory: recall is better in the same setting as learning. State-dependent memory: recall is better in the same mood or body state. The tip-of-the-tongue state is a retrieval failure.
- Serial position effect: better memory for the first (primacy) and last (recency) items in a list.
- Reasons for forgetting: encoding failure (never stored), decay (fading over time), interference (proactive: old info blocks new; retroactive: new info blocks old), and retrieval failure.
- Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve: most forgetting happens soon after learning.
Practice
You learn a new phone number and now cannot remember your old one. This is:
New information interferes with recalling old information.
A multiple-choice test is usually easier than a fill-in-the-blank test because it relies on:
Recognition is easier because the answer is provided as a cue.
A student remembers the first and last words from a list but forgets the middle. This is the:
Primacy and recency make the ends easier to recall.
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