Isabel studied Spanish all through high school and the first two years of college. However, she never visited any Spanish-speaking communities and has not spoken the language in over ten years. Her inability to remember the Spanish word for "horse" is likely attributed to _____.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Storage decay is the gradual fading of memories over time due to the lack of retrieval and reinforcement. Isabel's inability to remember the Spanish word for "horse" after ten years of not using the language suggests that the memory trace of that specific word may have decayed in her memory storage. Retroactive interference occurs when new memories interfere with the retrieval of old memories, but this is not applicable in Isabel's situation since nothing new was learned to interfere with her memory of "horse." Proactive interference occurs when old memories interfere with the encoding and retrieval of new memories, but this also does not apply to Isabel's case. Encoding failure refers to the inability to create a memory trace due to lack of attention or elaboration during the encoding process, but Isabel already learned the word for "horse" before, so this is not the reason for her current inability to remember it.

Isabel Studied Spanish All Through High School and the First