After meeting a new neighbor, Shandra mistakenly calls him "David" on several occasions. Eventually the neighbor kindly corrects her, saying, "My name is actually Darren." After that, Shandra correctly calls the man "Darren," but initially she has to work hard not to call him "David" instead. Which one of the following concepts best characterizes the change in Shandra's memory?
A) retrieval-induced forgetting
B) encoding specificity
C) the misinformation effect
D) a retrieval cue

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Retrieval-induced forgetting is the phenomenon where recalling some information can cause forgetting of related information. In this case, after repeatedly calling the neighbor "David," Shandra has encoded that name strongly in her memory. When she tries to recall the neighbor's name, the strong activation of "David" makes it harder for her to access the correct name, "Darren." This interference of related information is an example of retrieval-induced forgetting.

After Meeting a New Neighbor, Shandra Mistakenly Calls Him "David