[Music] in this psychoboost video we're going to cover explanations for forgetting now we've all experienced entering all password or pen by mistake and we've all struggled to remember something for ages only for the memory to be triggered when given a cue like walking to the kitchen forgetting why we're there and then remembering when walking back into the living room so we're going to discuss types of interference both proactive and retroactive as well as three types of queue dependent forgetting psycboost.com over 170 videos to help you with your qualification and patreon supporters can access bonus resources tutorial videos and the discord channel interference interference as an explanation for forgetting is the idea that long-term memories get confused with other memories when they're coded and there are two ways that this can happen firstly proactive interference this is when information that's already in long-term memory so old information interferes with the recall of newer information we could say that all information moves forward in time there's also the opposite process when learning new information into fears or disrupts the recall of older information and we could say this is new information that works backwards in time this can be a little tricky to understand so let's look at a few examples here are 10 scenarios and based on what i've just said try and figure out if they're examples of pro or retroactive interference pause the video and have a go okay so how did you do if you got it right you can probably spot in the scenario either that it was more recently learnt information that was disrupted for proactive and old information that was disrupted in the retroactive scenarios two things that make interference more likely firstly how similar the two pieces of information are so you're more likely to have interference between a phone number and another phone number than say a phone number and a postcode and we'll say that's because the two sets information are similar and this creates response competition both sets of information are there where it's difficult to choose between them secondly time sensitivity interference is more likely to happen if there's a small time difference between when you first learn both sets of information and of course the reverse is true the larger the time gap between learning both its information the less likely interferences to happen research showing retroactive interference is by schmidt who showed people between the ages of 11 and 79 a map of the area around their childhood home but left out the street names smith found the more time someone moved the fewer street names they could recall you might recognize this as a negative correlation and the data suggests retroactive interference the new information of more recent street names interfering with the recall of older street names there is also research showing proactive interference by greenberg and underwood participants were asked to learn four per word lists with 48 hours between testing each list the percentage of correctly recalled words decreased the more word lists had been learned previously from 69 for the first list to 25 for the fourth word list this suggests previously information moves forward and interferes with the recall of new information so proactive interference q dependent forgetting we'll come to some more general evaluations in a minute but first i want to talk about another concept q dependent forgetting this is when the information is in long-term memory but we can't access it because we don't have the correct cues or prompts this is an idea called the encoding specificity principle when we make or encode our memories other contextual information from when you made the memory is encoded along with it such as aspects of the environment or how you felt when you made the memory recalling that memory or forgetting it is influenced by the presence or absence of similar retrieval cues so there are going to be three types of retrieval cue we're going to cover context state and category dependent cues context dependent cues are the cues we get from the external environment familiar sights and sounds can trigger memories an absence of those retrieval cues can make recall more difficult and inhibit memory a study that demonstrated this effect was by god and badly they taught divers wordless either on land or underwater and then tested them on land or underwater they found recall was significantly better if they recalled the information in the same place that they'd first learnt it so recall was best underwater if they had learnt the information underwater state dependent cues are the cues that we get from our own internal environment this can be a mood a state of arousal like high anxiety or if your internal environment is affected by alcohol or drugs now we would argue that recall is better if when recalling information we're in the same state as when the information was coded a study that demonstrates the effect of state dependent cues is overtons research and in this study information was like either drunk or sober and later each group was tested drunk or sober overton found that recall was better if learnt in the same state so interestingly recalling information learnt drunk was better when drunk again and finally category dependent cues this is a little more complex the way we organize information can act as a cue if we have other bits of information linked to what we're trying to recall that acts as a queue and you may have experienced this in class with your teacher when i ask a question in class and the student struggles to answer i won't just tell them the answer i'll give a cue hoping that will trigger a memory so i might say we learned about this idea when we studied attachment the idea might suddenly come as because that information is linked to the category attachment evidence for category dependent cues is shown by tolving and pearlstone they give participants 48 words to learn the participants either used free recall saying the words back in any order or recalling the list split into four word categories that act excuse the recall and the categorized condition was significantly better than the uncategorized recall condition shown categories act as effective cues for recall additional valuations for explanations for forgetting now let's think of some additional valuations well first of all research on how forgetting works has real practical applications such as revision strategies for students and helping police get more accurate eyewitness testimony with findings from queue defending forgetting being used in the cognitive interview a technique we're going to cover at the end of the memory unit with interference the loss of information might only be a temporary process so interference theory might not be a true explanation of forgetting we don't know if interference involves writing over information so it's no longer accessible or if with the right cues we can access that lot of information interference also can't explain many day-to-day examples of forgetting interference can only explain forget and when two sets information are similar many everyday examples of forgetting like forgetting someone's birthday or where you just put your keys are a little bit more difficult to explain with interference theory finally again there is the issue of much of the research on memory coming from artificial studies using tasks that lack mundane realism as in tasks that are not like the tasks people do in their normal lives and we can argue this lowers the validity of those findings not really showing how forgetting happens in the real world have a go at this real exam question on explanations forgetting if you're a psychoboost patron then you're a level and above you can access the tutorial on psycboost.com and i'll talk you through your model answer to this question and some general tips for everyone else don't forget to like and subscribe so you don't miss out on the videos released right up to your exams and i'll see you in the next psych boost video factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony you