Cognitive psychology practical

Question 1

State the aim of the required practical for cognitive psychology

Answer 1

To see whether there is a difference in short-term recall of acoustically similar and dissimilar words

Question 2

State the IV of the required practical for cognitive psychology

Answer 2

acoustically similar / dissimilar word lists

Question 3

State the results of the required practical for cognitive psychology

Answer 3

• Participants’ performance in recalling acoustically similar words was lower than the recall of the participants in the dissimilar words

Question 4

State the hypotheses of the required practical for cognitive psychology

Answer 4

1. DIRECTIONAL: participants in the acoustically dissimilar word list condition will have a higher recall of words than the participants in the acoustically similar word list group
2. NON DIRECTIONAL: there will be a difference in the number of words recalled correctly between the acoustically similar and dissimilar groups
3. NULL: there is no difference between the number of words recalled correctly between the acoustically similar and dissimilar group

Question 5

What are the disadvantages of your cognitive required practical study

Answer 5

1. Low ecological validity
   - Used an artificial method of a word list that doesn’t represent how we use our memory in real-life scenarios, so results can’t be applied to everyday uses of memory
2. Unrepresentative sample
   - Sample was very small and only consisted of students from the same sixth form, who had the same free study period at the sixth form centre. It may be that these students have similarities in common so the results can’t be generalised to the wider population.

Question 6

What are the advantages of your cognitive required practical study?

Answer 6

1. Controlled standardised procedure gives high reliability
   - Practice effects were controlled by the participants in each condition doing the actual conditions in the opposite order, so cause and effect can be established because the only thing that was affecting the number of words correctly recalled was the STM
2. No bias
   - The sample was randomly allocated to conditions via a random word generator

Question 7

State the DV of the required practical for cognitive psychology

Answer 7

number of words correctly recalled from each list

Question 8

State the method of the required practical for cognitive psychology

Answer 8

1. A laboratory experiment with an independent groups design
2. Used opportunity sampling, 10 girls and boys picked randomly from the sixth form centre
3. Each participant was given a letter of consent beforehand
4. Participants were randomly allocated to groups with a random name generator
5. Had 2 conditions: similar and dissimilar word lists
6. Participants did the conditions in opposite orders to prevent order effects
7. Words were read aloud at a rate of 1 word per 3 seconds, and participants were given 20 seconds to write the word down
8. After the whole list was presented the participants were asked to recall the word list from memory
9. Number of words correctly recalled was recorded in a tally chart