Forgetting due to Retrieval Failure

Forgetting does not only occur because memory traces decay over time, as the disuse theory suggested, or because independently stored associations compete with one another at the moment of recall, as interference theory suggests. A third major cause operates at the point of recall itself: forgetting can also happen because the retrieval cues needed to access a memory are either missing altogether or are simply inappropriate for the memory being sought. Retrieval cues are aids that help a person recover information that is genuinely still stored in memory. This view was put forward by Tulving and his associates, who ran a series of experiments demonstrating that the contents of memory can become inaccessible purely because the cues available or used at the time of recall are absent or poorly matched to the material — not because the memory itself has been lost. …