why do we forget you know when we're trying to remember something and it's on the tip of our tongue but we just can't quite remember hey everyone welcome back to Bear it in mind in this video we're going to explore an explanation of forgetting that he's super relevant to the life of a student retrieval failure a man by the name of Marcel proust described how a long forgotten childhood memory suddenly and unexpectedly popped into his mind as he tasted a particular biscuit he had just dipped in a cup of tea the retrieval failure explanation states that the reason why we forget is not because the memories disappeared the memory is still there in our mind we're just having a problem accessing the memory we lack the right cue to trigger The Recoil of the memory psychologist endel torvin proposed an important idea known as the encoding specificity principle this simply means that the cues available at recall need to be the same specific cues that were there at learning when we first encoded the memory so for example after finishing my first year at University I spent the summer in the USA with Camp America the soundtrack for that summer was the Killer's album hot fuss [Applause] everywhere we went that album was on repeat now even many years later when I hear one of their songs it can provide a cue to bring back loads of memories from that great summer the queue that was there when I encoded and formed the memory the particular song triggers The Recoil of the memory whenever I hear it again now retrieval failure can be broken down into two parts firstly context dependent forgetting this focuses on the importance of external cues that is cues that are outside of us if we forget it's because when we try to recall the memory we lack the external cues that were present at learning this might be something as simple as the room and place we studied in but it might also be the headings or layout of material from your notes so if we're trying to recall a memory but the external contextual cues such as a keyword or heading are missing or perhaps You're simply trying to recall the information in a different location from where you learned or encoded the information we can fail to retrieve the memory this helps explain the classic scenario where you're in your bedroom and you have the thought to go and get something from downstairs so you walk out your bedroom down the stairs and go to the kitchen but the moment you walk into the kitchen you've completely forgotten what you were there for so you walk back up to your bed dream in the moment you walk in you remember the queues available at encoding that were in your bedroom were not there in the kitchen and so you struggled to retrieve the memory secondly State dependent forgetting this focuses on the importance of internal cues that is cues that are inside of us if we forget it's because when we try to recall the memory we lack the internal cues that were present at learning this might be physiological like being under the influence of alcohol or drugs or it might also be psychological in terms of our mood and emotions at the time the memory was formed for example sometimes people can forget memories because when they must recall the information like in an exam they are in a highly anxious stressed and potentially upset State the problem is that when they were learning and encoding the information for the exam into their memory they weren't in that state they were much more focused and emotionally calm and so the internal State the internal cues are now absent their memories are there they haven't disappeared even though you might feel like it has completely gone from your mind now let's consider two pieces of evidence for each of the explanations firstly research by garden and badly in 1975 which demonstrates context-dependent forgetting professional scuba divers have reported a particular problem they often found that they had difficulty recalling their observations of what they had observed underwater when they were back on land so Duncan garden and Alan badley investigated this by conducting some research off the coast of Scotland the scuba divers were tested on their ability to remember lists of words under four conditions learn the list underwater and then recall the list underwater number two learn the list underwater and recall the list on land number three learn the list on land and recall the list underwater and number four learn the list on land and recall the list on land they found that recall was the best for conditions one and four when the queues available at recall were the same as learning the income loading specificity principle and recall was the worst for conditions two and three when the context was different a second study that demonstrates context dependent forgetting was researched by Grand Hotel in 1998. they'd participants read an article in either silent or noisy conditions there were four conditions again learn in silence recall in silence learn in silence recall in a noisy environment learn in a noisy environment recall in silence and learn in a noisy environment and recall in a noisy environment they found the ability to retrieve the information was better when the conditions matched showing how we can forget if the contextual cues in this case silence or noise are absent at recall what about the research evidence for State dependent forgetting well during the summer months when their pollen count is high and people can suffer particularly from allergies One Drug people often take to reduce those symptoms is called an antihistamine not only does this drug help relieve allergies but depending on the drug it can also have sedative effects it can make you feel drowsy what's this got to do with forgetting you ask well here's the research of Carter and Cassidy in 1998. they wanted to see if taking an antihistamine which would change your internal state would affect memory recall they had participants try to free recall a list of 20 words and free recall a short passage of information and they use the classic four condition setup we have previously explored they found that the amount the participants could recall was indeed affected by the state they were in recall was higher when they were in the same internal State at recall and learning and retrieval failure happened when they were in different states at encoding and recall and for a second study that demonstrates State dependent for getting we have Research into the effects of alcohol by low in 1983. in this research that took place over two days participants were asked on day one to memorize a geographical map and an audio description of a set of instructions to follow a particular route on the map half of the participants were sober when they did this task and the other half were well under the effects of alcohol shall we say 24 hours later during day two their recall was then tested in either the same or different states we have the classic four conditions again they found greater recall when the participants internal state was the same encoding as when recalling the information amazingly they recalled more information when drunk if that was the state they were in when they encoded the information one of the criticisms put forward for the retrieval failure explanation is that the context or state you are in when recalling a memory has to be dramatically different from the context or state you encoded the information in I mean look at the list dry land versus underwater medicated or not sober or drunk this is unlike many of the day-to-day experiences of forgetting we encounter as a result the explanation doesn't account for why we might forget in circumstances that aren't so dramatic in circumstances where things are fairly similar in fact the previous explanation of forgetting that we covered specifically looks at why we forget when things are similar secondly one of the real strengths of this explanation is how it can be applied to real life particularly in relation to revision if we can understand why we forget perhaps we can use this idea in Reverse to help us remember more information when we really need it like in exams for example we know that having the right cues and triggers are needed to help us recall information this means that when you're making notes creating revision materials and importantly when you practice recalling information you need to make effective use of memorable cues the clearer and more memorable you can make cues the easier you make it to recall some students might make use of mnemonics for example you may remember from the video on the psychodynamic approach that for Freud psychosexual stages of development we use the phrase old age pensioners like gardening could you remember the stages from that you may also remember that for the video on the working memory model we use the simple heading of p p P to help recall the supporting evidence for one of the components of the working memory model could you remember it now thirdly and finally the idea of retrieval failure has also been applied to help improve the accuracy of eyewitness testimony we know that what can help recall is to have the cues that were present at encoding also there when we recall this has led to an improvement in the way police interview eyewitnesses through something called the cognitive interview part of this process involves reinstating the context where they help the eyewitness think about or in some cases literally go back to the context in which the crime took place this has been shown to help increase not only the amount of information they could remember but also the accuracy if you're interested in finding out more about the cognitive interview you can click on the link I'll put up here so be encouraged the chances are if you have been in class and paid attention if you've done the work and revised effectively you can probably recall the information it is in there you just need the queues to help you recall the information so next time you're asked a question in class and you're tempted to say I don't know uh I've forgotten try and explore different cues that could trigger the memory you may be surprised by what you can remember I'd love to hear from you what theories and ideas do you have about why we forget have you get any tips and advice to help us remember more or even what bad advice have you heard over the years about memory and forgetting that you think we should just all avoid put that down in the comments and we can continue the discussion there I hope you found this video helpful and we'll see you in the next one