2.5 practical (cognitive)

Question 1

what is the aim of the cognitive practical?

Answer 1

to investigate whether short term memory encodes acoustically similar words or acoustically dissimilar words better

Question 2

what’s the one tailed hypothesis of the cognitive practical?

Answer 2

participants should be able to recall more acoustically dissimilar words in order than acoustically similar words

Question 3

what’s the null hypothesis of the cognitive practical?

Answer 3

there is no difference as to which word lists participants recall better

Question 4

what’s the procedure of the cognitive practical?

Answer 4

• replication of baddeley’s experiment
• participants will need to give informed consent
• shown acoustically similar list of 10 words and each word displayed for 3 seconds
• words will be shown in a random order and participants will have to write down words in order as displayed before
• done again for acoustically dissimilar list

Question 5

what group design is the practical?

Answer 5

independent group design

Question 6

what’s the analysis of the practical?

Answer 6

• as it’s a independent group design, mann whitney u test is used to see if the differences between the performances are significant
• calculated value of 25.5 is greater than critical value of 21 so null hypothesis is accepted and differences between list are not significant

Question 7

what are the strengths of the practical?

Answer 7

highly controlled
—> standardised tasks
—> each word displayed for exactly 3 seconds
—> each word is equally common in the English language

Question 8

what are the weaknesses of the practical?

Answer 8

testing conditions:
—> noises and various movement may have an effect on the experiment
—> environmental factors could be affecting recall ability, not just the acoustics

Question 9

how can the practical be improved?

Answer 9

1. use the same environment
   —> use a lab room with nothing in it and no one in the rooms, therefore no distractions
   —> ensures that recall ability of word lists are not influenced by the environment
2. use participants of the same age
   —> ensures recall ability is not affected by age differences