Baddeley Classic Study Flashcards
Describe Baddeley’s study (1966)
After experiment 1 and 2, Baddeley conducted a third experiment which slightly changed conditions.
Aim- To investigate influence of acoustic/semantic word similarity in learning/recall in Long-term memory.
Sample- Opportunity sample, 72 Male and Female Cambridge University students from psychology panel
Procedure- Showed ppts words on screen (Visually) in order as opposed to stating words like in experiment 1 which may cause confounding variables (Hearing)
Four lists of words used:
* List A contained 10 acoustically similar words (Man ,Can ,Cat ,Map) done by 18 ppts (Experimental list)
* List B 10 acoustically dissimilar words matched in terms of frequency of everyday use to list A done by 17 ppts (Control)
* List C contained 10 semantically similar words (Great ,large, big, broad etc) done by 20 ppts (Experimental)
* List D contained 10 semantically dissimilar words matched in terms of frequency of everyday use to list C. done by 20 ppts (control)
Controlled- Commonality (How common were they used) and frequency (How much were they used in everyday conversation)
Conducted interference task after test, asked them to recall list in order, they can see the words in random order on the screen. This was done another 3 times (4 Trials)
Unrelated task, then they had to recall for 5th and final time, which was used in results. Performance on this task was used in results.
Findings-
In trials 1 and 2 ppts in acoustically similar condition performed worse than acoustically dissimilar controls(STM), no significant difference in retest (LTM). In trials 1 and 2 there was no significant difference between sequential recall of semantic word lists(STM), in trial 4 and 5, sequential recall was significantly worse for semantically similar word list in comparison to semantically dissimilar control (LTM).
Conclusions-
Long-term memory encodes semantically, and therefore will be impaired with semantically similar words. (Fewer semantically similar words were recalled in comparison to semantically dissimilar and acoustically similar/dissimilar.
Justification- This Is because ppts experienced confusion with word meanings when recalling from Long-term memory.
Evaluate Baddeley’s study (1966)
Evaluation
Aim- Investigate the Influence of acoustic and semantic word similarity on learning and recall in long-term memory.
AO1- 72 Men and Women from Cambridge university psychology Panel Reduced androcentrism, results regarding memory can be generalised to both genders.
AO3-A limitation is that the sample may be unrepresentative of target population as it is small (Low population validity) which makes it difficult to generalise.
AO3- The study only includes highly academic people from Britain, which means that the sample may be unrepresentative of multicultural target population from many educational backgrounds, this means that results regarding memory are ungeneralisable to people of other academic abilities and people from other countries.
Method 1-
AO1- Study was conducted in a highly controlled environment and contained standardised procedures such as having 4 learning trials.
AO3- This is a strength Study can be replicated and therefore results regarding STM and LTM can be tested and deemed for reliability.
Method 2-
AO1- Study was conducted in a highly controlled environment with the use of an artificial task.
AO3- This is a limitation as this Lowers ecological/external validity and mundane realism as task was unusual to what we do in everyday environment.
AO3- Lowered internal validity as ppts may intentionally leave things out in their recall (Screw-You effect)
Results + conclusion:
In trials 1 and 2 ppts in acoustically similar condition there was no significant difference in recall of acoustically similar and dissimilar word lists in retest (LTM).
In trials 1 and 2 there was no significant difference between sequential recall of semantic word lists(STM), in trial 4 and 5, sequential recall was significantly worse for semantically similar word list in comparison to semantically dissimilar control (LTM).
A strength is that the Results are highly applicable, as they can be applied to revision and the idea of using Elaborative rehearsal (Encodes semantically) which looks into understanding the deeper meaning of the content/topic, so that LTM recall is more effective.
Conclusion-
To conclude, the experiments are useful towards understanding memory and how it works, in particular LTM encoding, which is highly applicable to learning however there are limitations such as the fact the results had limited generalisability, the study also had limited external validity due to using an artificial task, however the results/ conclusions had high, revision application (Elaborative rehearsal) and high reliability ( As it can be replicated and tested again).
