Contemporary Study Flashcards
What is the Contemporary study of Cognitive Psychology?
Sebastian and Hernandez- Gil (2012)
The developmental pattern of digit span
What was the aim of the Contemporary study?
To investigate the capacity of the Phonological loop and whether it increases with age
What was the sample of the Contemporary study?
575 children aged between 5-17 years from Madrid, Spain.
The children were selected from pre-primary, primary and secondary schools (both public and private).
They had no cognitive or hearing impairments.
What was the procedure of the Contemporary study?
Each child was verbally read out loud a sequence of digits which increased in length by one each time.
The task began with three sequences of three digits, then three sequences of four digits etc.
The participants had to listen to the sequence, then recall the order of them straight away
What was the dependent variable of the Contemporary study?
The longest continuous digit span a child could recall in order without error.
What were the results of the Contemporary study?
Results showed that there was an increase in digit span recalled with age.
5 year olds had the lowest digit span with an average of 3.76 (4.00)
11 year olds had a gradual increase in the average digit span of 5.28 (5.00)
17 year olds had an average digit span which began to stabilise of 5.91 (6.00)
What three groups were the Spanish children compared with in the Contemporary study?
-English elderly
-People with dementia (Alzheimer’s)
-English schoolchildren
This was conducted in order to investigate whether age or dementia had the greatest impact on the capacity of the Phonological Loop.
What was the average digit span of people with Alzheimer’s?
4.20
Similar to that of a Spanish 6-7 y/o
What was the average digit span of people that suffered with dementia?
4.22
Similar to that of a Spanish 6-7 y/o
What was the average digit span of the elderly?
4.44
This was not significantly different compared to those with dementia
What was the overall conclusion drawn from whether age or dementia had the greater impact on the capacity of the Phonological Loop?
Overall, results concluded that the phonological capacity decreases with age and is not significantly impacted by the influence of dementia.
What was Baddeleys Word length effect?
Baddeley concluded the differences between the digit spans from that of English and Spanish school children was due to the difference in languages.
This was because Spanish numbers have a greater amount of syllables than English numbers, and therefore the phonological capacity will be lower.
Consequently, this demonstrated that the phonological capacity depends on the length of the word and its number of syllables.
Supporting the idea that English people would have a larger phonological capacity as age increases.
Evaluate Sebastian and Hernandez-Gils Contemporary study (8 marks)
Generalisability- strength
Hernandez-Gils sample: 575 Spanish school children 5-17 years old from a range of pre-primary, primary and secondary schools in Madrid, Spain.
Therefore, the phonological capacities results can be generalised to the wider population of the same age range.
However, the study is also not generalisable due to the different cultures - confounding variable.
The digits in Spanish are longer in length and have a more syllables, therefore their phonological capacity would be much smaller compared to other countries.
In order for this to be overcome, the experiment should be compared to those conducted in other countries to review consistency of results.
However, Hernandez- Gil and Sebastian did compares their results to English schoolchildren.
Reliability- strength
The results are highly reliable because all participants were exposed to a standardised procedure, meaning all the sequences were presented in the same way.
Leading to consistent and reliable results.
Application/ usefulness - Strength
Can be useful to apply information to real life.
As their results suggest that the capacity of the phonological loop increases with age, it is useful for teachers and parents to use as a technique to help chunk verbal information depending on the age of the individual, so their response is effective.
Validity- Strength and Weakness
Strength- high level of internal validity as the children selected didn’t suffer from hearing or cognitive impairments. The large sample removes the risk of extraneous variables, influencing the capacity of the phonological loop. Additionally, the study was a field experiment which means the responses would be natural.
However, this is also a weakness because external factors such as background noise could have still impacted the capacity to recall.
The procedure was also artificial and unrealistic to be used to explain the phonological capacity in real life situations.
Ethics- strength
No potential harm was caused to the children as they were only recalling a sequence of digits
Fully informed consent would have to be provided from parents to participate.
No deception took place
Describe the procedure of the contemporary study? (4 marks)
Sebastian and Hernandez Gil aimed to investigate the capacity of the phonological loop and whether it increases with age. Hernandez Gil recruited a sample of 575 Spanish school children from Madrid, within the age range of 5-17 years old. The participants were to complete a digit span test where they were verbally read out loud a sequence of digits which increased in length by one each time. After, they were then asked to immediately recall the set of numbers, and the longest sequence of digits in order, without error the child could recall was measured in order to identify their maximum phonological capacity.
Explain the results of the Contemporary study (4 marks)
Hernandez- Gil suggested that the capacity of the phonological loop increases with age. This was demonstrated through his results in which there was an increase in the mean digit span a child could recall between the ages of 5 and 17 years old. The average digit span of a 5 year old was 3.76 while the average digit span of a 17 year old was 5.91.
Additionally, it was also concluded that the phonological loop capacity also decreases with age, and not as a result of dementia. This was because, when comparing the differences between the average digit spans of the elderly control group- 4.44 and those who had dementia- 4.22 there was not a significant differentiation between the two groups of individuals. Also, both groups had average digit spans which were similar to that of a 6 or 7 year old.
