cognitive practical Flashcards
what was the procedure
participants were escorted to the room and were given instructions on what to do
word list appeared on projector for 3 seconds and then the word changed
were given 1 minute to write it down
handed in their papers with the word list and participant numbers on them
participants were debriefed after
what was the method
lab experiment
what was the IV
acoustically similar word list of every day words (man, van, can) and acoustically dissimilar word list of every daw words (pit, few, cow)
what was the sample
18 students from Dame Elizabeth Cadbury Sixth Form
aged 16-17
4 17yr olds, 14 16yr olds
11 female
8 male
what was the DV
number of every day words recalled in the correct order out of 10
what was the apparatus
powerpoint
timings
number of words
type of word
the board
pen
paper
controlled environment
what was the sampling method
opportunity
what was the aim
to investigate whether short term memory is encoded acoustically
what ethical issues were violated
informed consent- we didn’t tell them the aim
deception- not told the true aim
we debriefed them after
what were the controls
tested in the same room at the same time
word list and timings were the same
what is the null hypothesis
there will be no significant difference between the number of words recalled correctly out of 10 when tested with acoustically similar and dissimilar words
what were the acoustically dissimilar words
pit
few
cow
cat
lie
and
mad
pen
sky
who
what was the alternative hypothesis
there will be a significant difference between the number of words recalled correctly out of 10 when tested with acoustically similar and dissimilar words
what were the acoustically similar words
man
van
can
pan
tan
ban
ran
fan
nan
dan
how could we improve this experiment
have a bigger sample with people from different places and a wider age range to increase internal validity
eg. 100 13-18 year olds from schools in Birmingham
evaluate the generalisability of the experiment
results cant be generalised to students outside of Dame Elizabeth sixth form
we used 18 16-17 year olds from the sixth form to test STM recall
this is a problem because any memory applications for revision can only be relevant to students from this sixth form
evaluate the ethics of the study
ethics were good
we used participant numbers to protect memory results and give confidentiality
this prevents them from having psychological harm due to being shamed for having a poor score
what was the conclusion
results suggest that STM encodes acoustically as those in the AD condition scored significantly higher than those in the AS condition
evaluate the validity
task was artificial
we used a list of 10 words for each group to remember but that isn’t a daily task
it lacks ecological validity as it doesn’t mirror real life so any memory applications might not be useful
what are the practical applications
there could be practical applications
AS words were recalled worse than AD words
could be used to develop better revision techniques like not revising similar sounding key terms at the same time
evaluate the reliability
study is quite reliable as memory was tested consistently
each word was presented on the board for 3 seconds and each participant had 1 min to recall words
this increases internal validity as memory recall was fairly tested for each participant
how does our study relate to Baddeleys research
our study contradicts his research as we found a significant difference between the 2 word lists and he found no significant difference
what were the results
critical value of 17
18 participants
Mann Whitney U score= 1
Two tailed hypothesis
