1. TYPES OF MEMORY – Research Support
STUDY
WHAT THEY DID / FOUND
IMPLICATION  What does this suggest / support

2. TYPES OF FORGETTING – Research Support
STUDY
WHAT THEY DID / FOUND
IMPLICATION  What does this suggest / support

3. Long Term Memory and Forgetting
Examine different types of Long-Term memory ( semantic, episodic, procedural)
Examine different theories of Forgetting
Interference  ‘Retroactive’ and ‘Proactive’
Retrieval failure  ‘Context’ and ‘State’ cues missing

4. Types of long-term memory
Semantic memory
Episodic memory
Procedural memory

5. Declarative (explicit) memory: knowing that….
Procedural (implicit) memory: knowing how….
Memory for facts and knowledge i.e. the multistore model of memory. This is a type of explicit memory. Semantic memories usually start as episodic memories but progressively loose their association with particular events and only the knowledge remains.
Semantic memory
Personal memories of events i.e. your last birthday party. This is a type of explicit memory. These memories usually include details of an event, the context in which the event took place and emotions associated with the event.
Episodic memory
Memory of how to do things i.e. riding a bicycle or driving. These memories require a lot of repetition and practice- they are implicit meaning we find them very difficult to explain even if we find the actions easy to perform. Procedural memories are automatic
Procedural memory

6. Evidence for different types of LTM
Tulving (1989) performed brain scans on six volunteers and found that when the participants were using their episodic memory, part of the front cortex (frontal lobes) was active, compared to when the participants were using their semantic memory when the back cortex was active.
This suggests that episodic memory and semantic memory are two separate systems.
Heindel et al (1988) investigated learning in people with Huntingdon’s Disease, a progressive, degenerative disease of the brain. They found that HD patients had no problems learning new facts and knowledge, but had severe problems learning new motor skills. This shows that procedural and semantic memories are two separate systems.

7. Evidence for different types of LTM
Rosenbaum et al., K.C. had an accident causing widespread brain damage that includes large bilateral hippocampal lesions.
These caused memory impairment, most of his general knowledge of the world, including knowledge about himself is intact but he is incapable of recollecting any personal events, this “episodic amnesia” covers his entire lifetime.
This shows that semantic memory and episodic memory are two distinct processes.
HM & Clive Wearing had brain damage severely affecting episodic memory but semantic and procedural memories were relatively intact. Clive Wearing could read and play very complex pieces of music on a piano. They show that procedural memory is distinct from both semantic and episodic memory.

8. Evidence for different types of LTM
De Renzi et al. (1987) described an Italian woman who, after an episode of herpes encephalitis that affected the left temporal lobe, showed a severe impairment of semantic memory but her episodic memory was relatively undamaged. O'Connor et al. (1992) reported a patient with right temporal lobe damage after herpes encephalitis, who showed very severe impairment in the recall of episodic memories but relatively undamaged semantic memory.
These case studies support the fact that episodic , semantic and procedural memories are distinct types of memory.
However ALL of the above are case studies so they cannot be replicated for practical and ethical reasons so the reliability of the findings cannot be checked. Furthermore the sample in each of the studies consists only of one patient so the results are influenced by individual characteristics so we cannot generalise the results to the wider population.

9. Long Term Memory and Forgetting
Examine different types of Long-Term memory ( semantic, episodic, procedural)
Examine different theories of Forgetting
Interference  ‘Retroactive’ and ‘Proactive’
Retrieval failure  ‘Context’ and ‘State’ cues missing

10. Forgetting proactive and retroactive interference
retrieval failure due to absence of cues
The Multistore model of memory states that LTM has an unlimited capacity, and memories have a duration of potentially a lifetime. However, we know by experience that we forget information stored in the LTM.
But does that mean the memories are gone (availability), or we just can’t reach them (accessibility) ?

11. Forgetting Theory 1: Interference
Interference: one memory disturbs the ability to recall another. This might result in forgetting or distorting one or the other or both. This is more likely to happen if the memories are similar.
Proactive interference:
Previously learnt information interferes with the new information you are trying to store.
E.g: you have difficulties learning the names of the peer in your psychology class instead you keep remembering the names of peers in your maths group last year.
Retroactive interference:
A new memory interferes with older ones.
E.g: you have difficulties remembering the names of peers in your maths group last year because you learnt the names of your psychology class this year.
New memory
Old memory
Old memory
New memory
Proactive interference
Pro=forward
Retroactive interference
Retro=backward

12. Underwood & Postman (1960)
Aim: examine if new learning interferes with previous learning.
Procedure: Participants were divided into two groups. Group A were asked to learn a list of word pairs i.e. cat-tree, they were then asked to learn a second list of word pairs where the second paired word was different i.e. cat – glass. Group B were asked to learn the first list of word pairs only. Both groups were asked to recall the first list of word pairs.
Results: Group B recall of the first list was more accurate than the recall of group A.
Conclusion: This suggests that learning items in the second list interfered with participants’ ability to recall the list.  This is an example of retroactive interference.

13. A real-life study: Baddeley & Hitch (1977)
They asked rugby players to recall the names of teams recently played. For various reasons including injuries and suspensions most players they interviewed had missed some games, so for one player the last game might have been last week, while for another it was two months ago. Baddeley and Hitch found that recall for the last game was equally good whether that game was played some time ago or last week. This shows that incorrect recall was not due to decay (the passage of time) but was related to the number of intervening games. This demonstrates that interference is a reason for forgetting in our everyday life.

14. Evaluation
The participants do not have the same motivation to remember the stimuli used in an experiment than they have to remember things which are important to their lives i.e. remembering studies for an exam, so the recall of the participants might be less accurate and make the effects of interference appear stronger than they really are.
Most of the evidence supporting this theory comes from lab studies. This is a strength as the extraneous variables can be controlled and these experiments can be replicated so reliability can be tested. However they use artificial material (i.e. word lists) which are meaningless to the participants so they do not represent every day situations when we have to remember things which have meaning to us i.e. a shopping list. However there is support for the influence of interference in every day life (Baddeley & Hitch).
Baddeley (1990): tasks given to participants are too close to each other and, in real life, these kinds of events are more spaced out so the effect might be different.

15. Forgetting Theory 2: Cue-dependent forgetting
This theory explains forgetting in the LTM as a retrieval failure: the information is stored in the LTM but cannot be accessed.
Forgetting according to this theory is due to lack of cues.
Two types of cues:
Cues linked meaningfully to the information to be remembered.
Cues not linked meaningfully to the information to be remembered.
This theory proposes that when we learn the information we also encode the context (external cues) in which we learn the information and the mental state we are in (internal cues). Both of these can act as cues to recall.
Context dependent forgetting
State-dependent forgetting

16. Context-dependent forgetting
Context-dependent forgetting can occur when the environment during recall is different from the environment you were in when you were learning.
Aim: Godden and Baddeley (1975) investigated the effect of environment on recall. This study took place in Scotland.
Procedure:
18 divers from a diving club were asked to learn lists of 36 unrelated words of 2-3 syllables
Compared 4 conditions :
Learn on beach, recall on beach
Learn on beach, recall under water
Learn under water, recall on beach
Learn under water, recall under water

17. Context-dependent forgetting
Context-dependent forgetting can occur when the environment during recall is different from the environment you were in when you were learning.
Results
Conclusion: the results show that the context acted as a cue to recall as the participants recalled more words when they learnt and recalled the words in the same environment than when they learnt and recalled the words in different environments.

18. This study has limited ecological validity because the environment was familiar to the divers but the task was artificial as we are not usually asked to learn a list of meaningless words in our everyday life (-ve).
Another weakness is that the groups who learnt and recalled in different environments were disrupted (they had to change environment) whereas the groups who learnt and recalled in the same environment were not disrupted. This could have influenced their recall (-ve).
However it was a controlled experiment so it can be replicated so reliability can be tested (+ve) .
Evaluation
The studies carried out do not take into account the meaning of the material and the level of motivation of the person when learning the information.
Real –life applications:
This is used as a strategy to improve recall in eye-witness memory when the witnesses are asked to describe the context in which the incident they have witnessed took place during cognitive interviews.

19. State-dependent forgetting
State-dependent forgetting occurs when your mood or physiological state during recall is different from the mood you were in when you were learning.
Goodwin et al. (1969).  Forty-eight male medical students participated on day 1 in a training session and on day 2 in a testing. They were randomly assigned to four groups.
Group1: (SS) was sober on both days.
Group 2: (DD) was drunk both days.
Group 3: (DS) was drunk on day 1 and sober on day 2.
Group 4: (SD) was sober on day 1 and drunk on day 2.
The intoxicated groups had 111 mg/100 ml alcohol in their blood. They all showed signs of intoxication.
Participants had to perform 4 tests:  an avoidance task, a verbal rote-learning task, a word-association test, and a picture recognition task.

20. State-dependent forgetting
State-dependent forgetting occurs when your mood or physiological state during recall is different from the mood you were in when you were learning.
Goodwin et al. (1969) 
Results: More errors were made on day 2 in the DS and SD condition than in the DD or SS conditions (however this was not the case for the picture recognition test). The SS participants performed best in all tasks.
So, in rank it was: SS best, DD second , DS & SD after
Conclusion: this supports the state-dependent
memory theory as the performance was best in the participants who were sober or intoxicated on both days.

21. Evaluation
The studies carried out do not take into account the meaning of the material and the level of motivation of the person when learning the information.
Real–life applications
This is used as a strategy to improve recall in eye-witness memory when the witnesses are asked to describe their mood/ emotional state when the incident they have witnessed took place (cognitive interview).