PSYC 144 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Encoding Specificity Principle, Power Law, Interference Theory
Document Summary
Graph of vocabulary recalled vs time since class; followed the same pattern as ebbinghaus: power law of forgetting (ebbinghaus function)- forget rapidly at first and then at slower rate later on. Graph scale doesn"t matter; illusion that at some point forgetting stops. *may forget rapidly at first because the memory is still being consolidated and interference is occurring, and over time forgetting levels off because the memory has been consolidated into long term memory. Jenkins and dallenbach sleep study- had 2 people learn new syllables and tested them again after 8 hours. Experiment- two groups learn a list of word pairs (a-b pairs), one new memories a) degrade or b) compete with old memories. Muller and pilzecker proposed theory of consolidation and notion of retroactive interference. Did experiment where subject had to memorize a list with cued recall test 90 minutes later.
