what is the aim of baddeley’s study?
to investigate the influence of acoustic and semantic word similarility on learing and recall in STM and LTM
describe the sample used in baddeley’s study
72 men and women from the Cambridge University subject panel (mostly students) - volunteers
what type of experiment did baddeley use?
lab experiment
what are the 4 conditions in baddeley’s study?
condition A = acoustically similar
condition B = acoustically dissimilar
condition C = semantically similar
condition D = semantically dissimilar
describe the procedure of baddeley’s study
- pps split into 4 groups and assigned a list from the 4 diff lists of 10 words
- each condition was shown the set of words on a slideshow appearing at a rate of 1 word every 3 seconds
- after each trial a 6 eight-digit sequence recall task was performed as an interference task to occupy the STM and then the list was recalled.
- all that mattered was that the words were recalled in the right order, and this was done for a total of four trials.
- after the fourth trial a 15 minute self-paced digit task was completed followed by a re-test which was unexpected for the participants
describe the results of baddeley’s study
- found a tendency for acoustically similar lists to be harder than the control list during early learning/from STM
- found the semantically similar list had poorer recall than the control list on the surprise retest/from LTM
describe the conclusions of baddeley’s study
- LTM primarily uses semantic encoding. Baddeley knows this because semantically dissimilar was the highest scoring list in Retest condition, but semantically similar list performed the worst overall, shows similar meanings confuse LTM
- LTM has no problem retrieving the order of acoustically similar words because LTM pays no attention to how the words sound, therefore can recall the order
evaluation of baddeley - generalisability
P - A weakness of the study is that it has limited generalisability, as it had an unrepresentative sample due to a small number of participants in each condition
E - In total there were 72 participants from the UK, with 15-20 being in each of the 4 trials. ethnocentric - sample biased towards one country/culture
T - This is a weakness because the results about how memory encodes cannot be generalised to the wider population e.g. non-english speaking culture
evaluation of baddeley - reliability
P - A strength of baddeley’s study is that it has high reliability due to it being a lab experiment with a standardised procedure
E - For example, participants were all given a 6 eight-digit sequence recall task and then had 1 minute to recall the word list in order. Each word was shown on the projector for 3 seconds and participants had a 15 min interference task after the 4th trial
T - Therefore the study can be replicated objectively to check for consistent findings
evaluation of baddeley - application
P - The study has application to real life, it is useful to understand how to make learning more effective so that information can be stored in the LTM.
E - Conclusions suggest that knowledge for exams should be given meaning to ensure it is encoded into LTM because semantically similar word list had the worst recall in the retest condition, suggesting LTM encodes semantically
T - This is a strength because it means the results of the study are beneficial and can be used to understand behaviour in society.
evaluation of baddeley - ecological validity
P - A weakness is that the study has low ecological validity, as it used an artificial task, which is not like memory tasks in everyday life
E - For example, participants had to recall 10 random words in order which aren’t exactly relevant or often required to remember in real life. Memory tests also don’t test purely on being similar acoustically.
T - This is a weakness because it limits the usefulness of the results because they do not measure memory use and encoding in real life situations.
evaluation of baddeley - internal validity
P: A strength of the study is that it has internal validity, the procedure made sure that pps were not using their STM when they completed the retest condition, only their LTM.
E: AO1: How did baddeley stop pps from using their STM in the retest condition???????????????????????????
T: This is strength because it means that the measurement of the effect of the IV (type of word list) on the DV (recall of correct order of words) was accurately measured and not affected by extraneous variables.
evaluation of baddeley - ethics
ethics were upheld in this study
