Question

How might you explain the different reasons why you may forget the process of classical conditioning if you were tested on it today?

Answer 1

There are a few ways that may cause me to forget the process of classical conditioning. First, I could be having retroactive interference. In this case, the newer information that I am just now learning about could be interfering with my retrieval of previous information. Second, I could be experiencing decay. This would mean that it’s been so long since I’ve learned about classical conditioning that my memory trace has not been used and I’ve started to forget about it. Finally, I also could simply have failed to process the memory in a process known as encoding failure. (One more option is that I am suffering from retrograde amnesia, but that is unlikely).