Cognitive : Contemporary Study (Henandez-Gil And Sebastian0 2012 Flashcards
EVALUATE THIS STUDY USING GRAVE
G= Limited Generalisability
All ppts from various schools in Madrid. Spanish words are longer than English words etc. Studying digit span in different language
Therefore unrepresentative of wider population and other cultures digit spans, however, memory is universal which allows the results to be generalised to the wider population
R= Other Research has shown cultural issues in the digit span + High level of standardisation in the procedure
The study concluded how in Spanish speakers the digit span is developed at age 17, where as in English speakers it is 15
Reading digits one per second there are three trials. Each time a ppt got sequence right, another digit was added. Had to recall two of the three sequences correctly, right digits, right order
A (internal validity) = high control over extraneous variables is a strength
Eliminating, those who had difficulties such as reading or writing, or and hearing for control for education and cognitive differences. None had repeated a school year.
Therefore, it increases the validity and cause-and-effect of data collected
V - large sample of participants used
570 participants take part in the study
Therefore limits the chances of anomalies impacting the results , increasing the validity of data analysed
Give strengths and weaknesses of the study
Strength: the study is strongly generalisable
This is because a wide range of ages were studied to show learning becomes easier
Therefore, the study is representative of people of different ages and can be repeated in the future
Weakness : however the study also isn’t generalisable
This is because only people from Spain were studied and more females were studied over males
This could mean it focuses more on people have one background and could be different in the rest of the world
Strength : it had high reliability
This is due to it following standardised procedure
This results in research findings being consistent
Weakness : It had low internal validity
This is because the study was conducted in schools, so there might of been several extraneous variables
This means that some findings might not have been super accurate
Application : in one way, it is good as it supports the WMM and shows evidence of a phonological loop, however, has poor explanation of the STM
It is useful because it shows when learning becomes easier and can be used to change how students are educated
This means the results can be useful to society, but not for STM
Aims of the study?
To study developmental pattern of working memory over time, including changes from aging or dementia
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil investigated the development of a phonological loop component of working memory children aged 5 to 17 years old
Method / procedure?
This was an experiment conducted in the field settings (schools). The independent variable was for years of schooling and the year group and the dependent variable was mean verbal digit span. The researchers also made comparisons between schoolchildren, elderly adults and people with dementia.
Primary data is gathered to test the hypothesis that there is a difference in digits pan which increases with age from 5 to 17 years old . 570 volunteers aged 5 to 17 years from the Spanish population and from various schools in Madrid. No participants had a repeat of the school year, had learning difficulties such as in Reading and writing, or hearing. This created some control of education, and cognitive differences.
The participants were split into five age groups ; age 5, 6 to 8, 9 to 11, 12 to 14, and, 15 to 17 years.
Participants were tested individually in the break time . Sequences of digits were read out loud, one per second. Each time in participant go the sequence right (the right digits in the right order), another digit was added to increase the spam and the participants tried again. They started with three sequences of three digits. Instructions required participants, listen, carefully and recover digits in the same order is presented. The digit span measure was the number of digits in the sequence where they recalled at least two of the three sequences correctly
What were the findings of the research?
The results show that digits pan increases with age. The preschool children aged five had a very low digit span and showed a significant difference from the others.
The researchers compared the result of this current study with the research, they have done in 2010 . In the 2010 study 25 older, healthy people were used to compare against 25 people with Alzheimer’s disease and nine people with fronto-temporal dementia.
The Performance of the elderly participants was compared with the youngest in the first part of a study, and showed a high digits, pan them both a five-year-old and six-year-old. The performance of the elderly participants did not too far from the other year groups.
However, the Alzheimer’s patient had a hydrogen stand on the five-year-olds, but not significantly different from the other groups . Whereas those with frontotemporal dementia had a similar digit sponsor, the youngest groups.
Conclusions of the study
Digit spell increases with age from 5 to 17 years, and this contrast with the Anglo-Saxon data as other studies demonstrated that digit spell increases to 15 years and then reached an adult level. The adult span is about seven digits.
Healthy order people had a sponsor to 7-year-old showing that digits declines with age, although we are not sure at what age does a kind start. Dementia did not seem to impact on digits pan and the capacity of a phonological loop seems to be affected by age but not dementia.
The word length effect takes more time to rehearse longer words, and more information is likely to be lost. The word length affect applies in this case, because Spanish word for digits are longer than the English equivalence.
furthermore , the word length effect occurs because we rehearse WhatsApp vocally, but we don’t begin to do this until about seven years of age. This means there should be no difference in digits between Spanish and English children younger than seven years.
Conclude
Sebastian and Hernandez, study demonstrates developmental changes in the capacity of a phonological loop, increasing up to adolescence and decreasing in old age. However, the limited number of participants means the study may not be powerful enough to support its conclusions about the effect of age. (Rather than dementia) on loop capacity. therefore the studies should be replicated to establish the validity of the findings
Application
Although recalling sequences of digits may not be how we use working memory in real life, digit span has been applied to understanding specific cognitive abilities.
For instance, people with a longer digit span also better readers, and have higher general intelligence and conversely, short digit span and is associated with specific learning disorders such as dyslexia
Control of variables
A strength is that the researchers used several standardised procedures. For example, the digits were read aloud at a constant rate of one per second for every participant. These procedures ensure that the expense of the study did not vary greatly from one participant to another, so the use of standardised procedures helps to control potentially confounding variables, and therefore contributed to a reasonable degree of internal validity.
However, the procedure lacked control in some areas . For instance, the researchers report that the children did not present impairments. This means the children were not directly tested, and the research is relied upon the children or their parents to divulge any hearing reading all of the cognitive impairments. This may have seriously undermined the validity of the study.
Small sample size
Weakness of the study was that one of the samples used in comparison study was small
Small sample sizes have an impact on the findings of the study because they reduce the power of the statistical tests . There were only nine participants in the group with frontotemporal dementia.
So therefore, the study may not have enough statistical power to reject the null hypothesis , making the conclusions regarding the phonological loop in the old age, questionable
