Classic Study Baddeley (1966) Flashcards
What was the Aim of this experiment?
To see if LTM was like STM, in that it encodes acoustically (by sound) or semantically (by meaning)
What was the procedural method of experiment 3?
-Baddeley separated the 72 participants into the 1 of 4 conditions A=acoustically similar words
B= acoustically disimilar words
C=semantically similar words
D=semantically disimilar words
- each list of 10 words was presented to the ppts in a specific order via a projector, 1 word was shown every 3 seconds
-after the words were revealed, the ppts then had to undergo a task using their STM which was writing out 6 lists of 8 digits after the numbers were read out. This was to prevent rehearsal of the word lists.
-the ppts then had 1 minute to recall the list of words
-this was repeated over 4 trials
-the ppts then had to do a task of self-paced digit copying for 15 minutes
-a final surprise retest of the word lists was then given to the ppts
What was the procedural design of the experiment?
Independent measures= the group of participants were allocated to just 1 of the 4 conditions.
What was the independent variable in the experiment?
The lists being acoustically or semantically similar or disimilar
What was the dependent variable in the experiment?
The score on the recall test with the words being in the correct order
What was Baddeley’s sample?
- a lab experiment
- consisting of both men and women selected from ‘The Applied Psychology Research Unit’
What did condition A entail?
Ppts learned a list of acoustically similar words (experimental)
For e.g man, can
What did condition B entail?
Ppts learned a list of acoustically disimilar words (control)
For e.g pit, few
What did condition C entail?
Ppts learned a list of semantically similar words (experimental)
For e.g large, big
What did condition D entail?
Ppts learned a list of semantically disimilar words (control)
For e.g good, hot
What was the purpose of the participants completing the recall task 4 times?
So that by the 3rd and 4th trial, the list of words were in the ppts’ LTM
What were the results of Baddeley’s study?
- in trial number 2, the mean score was 40% for the acoustically similar list compared to 65% in the control list.
- in trial number 4, the mean score was 55% for the semantically similar list compared to 85% in the control list.
- in both conditions, there wasn’t a noticeable mean score difference between trial 4 and the surprise retest.
What conclusions can be drawn from the classic Baddeley study?
- LTM encodes semantically and his earlier experiments suggest STM encodes acoustically
- this is due to the fact when LTM was tested to retrieve words that were semantically similar, it gets distracted by the semantic similarities of the words and muddles up the order. Whereas it has no problem retrieving acoustically similar words as LTM pays no attention to how the words sound.
