Baddeley 1966b classic study

Question 1

what is memory ?

Answer 1

our ability to retain and memorize information
it has a capacity which is the limit to how much information we can retain

Question 2

what is short term memory ?

Answer 2

• info retained for up to 30 secs
• has limited capacity to 5-9 chunks

Question 3

give an example of short term memory

Answer 3

trying to remember a series of words/numbers and trying to write them down

Question 4

what is long term memory ?

Answer 4

where the duration is potentially unlimited
the capacity is potentially unlimited

Question 5

give an example of long term memory

Answer 5

remembering the names of people you’ve met

Question 6

what was the aim of Baddeleys experiment ?

Answer 6

to investigate whether long term memory would work better with semantically similar words over acoustically similar words

Question 7

what are semantically similar words ?

Answer 7

words either the same meaning

Question 8

what are acoustically similar words ?

Answer 8

words which sounds similar to

Question 9

how did Baddeley conduct his first experiment ?

Answer 9

participants were asked to remember lists of words - some acoustically similar, some semantically similar

Question 10

what were the results of Baddeleys first experiment ?

Answer 10

participants recalled words which were acoustically similar well

Question 11

Baddeley thought that his results of experiment 1 were incorrect, why ?

Answer 11

he thought the short term memory was influencing results

Question 12

what did Baddeley use in experiment 2 to block short term memory ?

Answer 12

interference

Question 13

what were the results for experiment 2 ?

Answer 13

different to experiment 1

Question 14

who were the participants for experiment 3 ?

Answer 14

-72 applied psychology research unit panel from cambridge
- split into 4 groups

Question 15

what were the 4 groups for experiment 3 ?

Answer 15

group 1 (15 ppl) shown a list of acoustically similar words

group 2 (20 ppl) shown a list of acoustically dissimilar words

grouo 3 (16 ppl) shown a list of semantically similar words

group 4 (21 ppl) shown a list of semantically dissimilar words

Question 16

what was the procedure of experiment 3 ?

Answer 16

1- words presented (participants shown their word list 1 word at a time for 3 seconds

2- interference task (participants heard 8 numbers and had to write them down to block their STM)

3- recall task (participants were shown words from the word list and had to arrange them into the right order)

steps 1-3 repeated 3 more times

4 - 15 minute task (participants given unrelated task)

5- retest (participants recall word list 1 more time)

Question 17

what were the results of the acoustically similar word test ?

Answer 17

• participants remembered acoustically similar words better in the retest

Question 18

what were the results of the semantically similar test ?

Answer 18

participants struggled to recall semantically similar words in the retest

Question 19

what is the conclusion from the experiment ?

Answer 19

• semantically similar words had difficulty remembering as the LTM memory was confused by similar word meanings
• LTM prefers to encode word with meaning
• LTM doesn’t pay attention to how words sound, just the meaning
• If something is challenging for the STM to encode it doesn’t mean it will hinder the LTM ( participants struggled to recall acoustically similar words in the first few trials (STM hindered) but in the retest, recall was higher )

Question 20

evaluate the generalizability of the experiment

Answer 20

+ gender diversity
+ memory is universal - mind works the same = species specific
- all psychology staff/students at cambridge university (super smart people)
- all from UK = ethnocentric

Question 21

evaluate the ethics of the experiment

Answer 21

+ informed consent was given
+ protection from harm
+ right to withdraw
+ confidentiality
+ debrief given
- deception (participants not told they would be retested after 15 minute break)

Question 22

evaluate the reliability of the experiment

Answer 22

+ experiment 2 showed similar results
+ each participant did 4 trials of steps 1-3
+ standardized test = easy to repeat
- small number of participants = hard to see consistent trend in data

Question 23

evaluate the validity of the experiment

Answer 23

+ lab experiment = well controlled
+ everyone in the same group got the same word lists/time/got 15 minute break
+ no order effects as participants only did 1 word list
- low ecological validity
- participant variables = participants have different memories

Question 24

evaluate how easily applicable the experiment is to real life ?

Answer 24

+ useful for students when revising as they can attach meaning to words they want to remember so it will stay in their LTM

• cannot be applied to everything, e.g times tables