evaluation of the coding, capacity and duration of memory

Question 1

what is one limitation of Baddeley’s study

ARTIFICIAL STIMULI

Answer 1

Baddeley’s study used quite artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material - essentially the word list had no personal meaning to to participants

therefore caution should be taken when generalising the findings to different kinds of memory task e.g. when processing more meaningful information people may use semantic coding even for STM tasks

This means that the findings from this study have limited application

Question 2

what is one limitation of Jacob’s study

LACKING VALIDITY

Answer 2

one limitation of Jacob’s study is that it was conducted a long time ago

early research often lacked adequate control e.g. participants may have been distracted while they were being tested so they didn’t perform as well as they might

This means that results might not be valid because there were confounding variables that were not controlled

HOWEVER, the results of this study have been confirmed in other research, supporting its validity

Question 3

what is one limitation of Miller’s research

NOT SO MANY CHUNKS

Answer 3

one limitation of Miller’s research is that he may have overestimated the capacity of the STM

e.g. Cowan (2007) reviewed that he may have overestimated the capacity of STM was only four chunks. He suggests that thee lower end of Miller’s estimate (five items) is more appropriate than seven items

Question 4

what is one limitation of Peterson and Peterson’s study

MEANINGLESS STIMULI

Answer 4

one limitation of Peterson and Peterson’s study is that the stimulus material was artificial

• trying to memorise consonant syllables does not reflect most real - life memory activities where what we are trying to remember is meaningful. Therefore, the study lacks external validity

HOWEVER, we do sometimes try to remember fairly meaningless things, such as phone numbers, so the study is not totally irrelevant

Question 5

what is one strength of Bahrick et al’s study

HIGH EXTERNAL VALIDITY

Answer 5

one strength of Bahrick et al’s study is that it as high external validity - real life meaningful memories were studied

when studies of LTM have been conducted with meaningless pictures to be remembered, recall rates were lower ( Shepard 1967)

HOWEVER
confounding variables are not controlled
e.g. participants may have looked at their yearbook photos an rehearsed their memory over the years