Memory - Processes: A study of encoding

Question 1

What was the aim of Alan Baddeley’s study of encoding in memory?

Answer 1

Baddeley aimed to see if there was a difference in the type of encoding used in short-term (STM) and long-term memory (LTM)

Question 2

What was the method of Alan Baddeley’s study of encoding in memory?

Answer 2

Four groups were given 12 sets of five words to remember.
Group A had similar sounding words, Group B had dissimilar sounding words, Group C had words with similar meanings, Group D had words with dissimilar meanings.
Groups A and B were asked to recall their words immediately (testing STM) whilst Groups C and D were asked to recall their words after 20 minutes (testing LTM)

Question 3

What was the results of Alan Baddeley’s study of encoding in memory?

Answer 3

Group A recalled fewer words than Group B. Group C recalled fewer words than Group D.
Words with similar sounds were more poorly recalled than words with different sounds in STM.
Words with similar meanings were more poorly recalled than words with different meanings in LTM

Question 4

What was the aim of Alan Baddeley’s study of encoding in memory?

Answer 4

This shows STM is encoded by sound and LTM by meaning

Question 5

Evaluation - A controlled experiment

Answer 5

A strength of this study is that extraneous variables were controlled well.
For example, hearing was controlled by giving participants a hearing test.
Therefore we can be more certain that the type of words used was the factor that affected participants’ recall

Question 6

Evaluation - STM is sometimes visual

Answer 6

A weakness is that encoding in STM does not always involve sound.
Other studies (e.g. Brandimonte et al.) have found that if pictures are used rather than words then visual encoding is used.
This suggests that information does not just go into our STM in an acoustic form

Question 7

Evaluation - Extra: LTM may not have been tested