John and Susan find a penny, and Susan says, "I bet you can't tell me what is on the penny". John's inability to describe the penny is an example of a failure to encode.
The ability to encode a piece of information is to be able to translate or explain the body of information at a later date or time. When John thinks about what is on the penny, he couldn't describe it because he never learned how to encode the information on the piece of the penny in the first place.
Retroactive interference is a process whereby fresh memories interfere with the recovery of old memories. This sort of interference has a retrograde impact rendering it more challenging to recall previously learned information.
On the other hand, proactive interference is a process whereby old memories interfere with the recovery of fresh new memories.
Therefore, we can conclude that since John has never learned what a penny looked like before, he doesn't have previous information about it. As such, the only correct option is (2)
Learn more about how to encode information here:
https://brainly.com/question/13963375?referrer=searchResults
