Baddeley (1966b) (Classic Study) (2) Flashcards
What was the aim of Baddeley’s (1966b) Study?
Aim: Alan Baddeley conducted a study where he showed that recall of acoustically similar words from the short-term memory was poor. However STM was not affected by semantically similar words. He wanted to reproduce this with long term
What was the procedure in Baddeley’ s (1966b) study?
- He used 75 young servicemen
- They were all given a hearing test prior to the test
- The lists played out loud each word for 3 seconds
- they then had 40 seconds to write out the words
- they then had a 20 minute interference task
- then had to write down the words again in order
- this was done with 4 groups and different lists
What were the findings in Baddeley’ s (1966b) study?
There was very little difference in recall of semantic words
The Acoustically similar words were recalled better than the acoustically dissimilar
What were the 4 word lists in Baddeley’s study
- List A- Acoustically similar words
- List B- Acoustically Dissimilar words
- List C- Semantically similar words
- List D- Semantically Dissimilar words
What does Acoustically similar mean
Sound similar (Mat - Cat - Spat)
What does Acoustically dissimilar mean?
All sound different (fat - bad - dog)
What does Semantically similar mean?
Mean the same (small - tiny - mini)
What does Semantically dissimilar mean?
All different meanings (Good - bad - ugly)
What were the conclusions of Baddeley’s (1966b) study?
Due to the conclusions of his study being so different to his expectations Baddeley repeated his experiment in different ways due to a lack of understanding of the results.
What are the strengths of Baddeley’s (1966b) study?
- high internal validity
- very controlled procedure
What are the weaknesses of Baddeley’s (1966b) study?
- high internal validity made it unrealistic
- low external validity (encoding in the study was unlike in real life)
Application of Baddeley’s (1966b) study to learning:
Baddeley’s study’s showed us more than rehearsal is needed to learn things and methods such as spider diagrams are better for learning.
What were the Aims of Baddeley’s study?
To Investigate the influence of acoustic + semantic word similarity, on learning and recall in the STM and LTM
How many lab experiments did Baddeley conduct in his 1966 study?
Three different lab experiments were conducted
we focus on Experiment Three
How many participants were there in Baddeley’s study, and what levels of the IV were there?
72 participants
The 4 Lists of 10 Words: List A: Acoustically Similar List B: Acoustically Dissimilar List C: Semantically Similar List D: Semantically Dissimilar (Lists B + D were baseline control groups for Lists A + C respectively)
What was the Procedure of Baddeley’s study?
The words were presented via projector
They were projected One Word Every Three Seconds
They were asked to recall the words within a minute, in the correct order
They repeated this over 4 learning trials, as this was a test of memory, and not learning the words
15 minute interference task
They copied down 6 lots of 8 digit sequences at their own pace
This was to block out Rehearsal
After this, they were given a surprise retest
What were the Findings of Baddeley’s study?
Recall of Acoustically Similar was Worse than Acoustically Dissimilar
These results, however, were not significant
This demonstrates that Acoustic Encoding is Initially Difficult, but didn’t affect LTM recall
Recall of Semantically Similar Words was Worse than Semantically Dissimilar
These results were significant
What did Baddeley conclude in his study?
The STM is Largely Acoustic
The LTM is Largely, but Not Exclusively, Semantic
What were the strengths of Baddeley’s 1966 study?
Internal Validity: Lab Experiment
Internal Validity: Control Group
Reliability: Standardised Procedure
Practical Application
What were the weaknesses of Baddeley et al’s 1966 study?
Ecological Validity: Lab Experiment
Ecological Validity/ Mundane Realism: Unnatural Behaviour
^^ Therefore, Generalisability is Questioned
Ethics: Participants weren’t informed about the surprise retest
