Evaluation of Cue Dependency Theory of Forgetting

There is considerable evidence to support cue dependency theory of forgetting. For example, Godden and Baddeley (1975) found that divers could recall words better if they had learnt words in one environment and then recalled them in the same environment. Similarly Bower (1981) used hypnosis to manipulate a participant’s mood and found more information was recalled if they were in the same mood at both recall and encoding compared to when the cues did not match.

However the evidence often used to support cue dependency theory are experiments and may lack ecological validity as they test memory on simple word lists rather than more complex everyday memory tasks so cues may have a different effect on forgetting in real life.

Cue dependency theory does have lots of practical applications especially in terms of enhancing people’s recall by introducing context or state cues. For example, students can enhance their recall in an exam if they can imagine the classroom they learnt the information in. This would reactivate cues present at initial encoding. Similarly people can reactivate cues from the scene of a crime in order to increase recall of eye witness. This technique has been successfully used on programmes like Crime Watch.

This theory of forgetting does provide a credible explanation (it has face validity) of the experience many of us have when we return to an old place we haven’t been to for a while and we can suddenly recall events that happened there. For example, you may try to recall what it was like at your primary school without much success but if you went back to the school you would remember much more.

However, cue dependency theory does not explain every instance of retrieval failure forgetting. For example, it has been argued by Freud that we ‘choose’ to forget events that cause us anxiety when recalled. This is known as motivated forgetting or repression. It is argued that the anxiety provoking memory still exists but you are unable to access it or even realise it exists. This protects us from anxiety and allows us to bury traumatic events in our unconscious minds.