Practical

Question 1

Aim

Answer 1

Investigate whether more acoustically dissimilar words will be recalled by the STM than the similar words

Question 2

Procedure

Answer 2

• 9 pps given paper and pen to write w, viewed slideshow 10 words, 3 seconds each
• acoustically similar words condition pps get a list of words that share a similar sound, 1 syllable
• then repeated procedure w acoustically dissimilar words condition, but pps show one syllable words w no similarity
• then we calculated the mean, median, more and range for both conditions from results recorded by pps. Then used the mean results to calculate the standard deviation for the conditions to see if our experiment was successful
• we used Wilcoxin process to test the significance of our results
• using the mean results of the two conditions we drew up a bad chart to show the difference in mean results

Question 3

Results

Answer 3

Acoustically similar mean 2.6
Acoustically dissimilar 3.6
Difference is 1 shows easier to recite acoustically dissimilar words but not statistically significant
Calculated value T = 8 greater than critical value 5 for one tailed test at p 0.05 with n=8. Therefore results is not significant and the null hypothesis should be used

Question 4

Conclusion

Answer 4

Results show it’s easier to encode words acoustically dissimilar as Brain doesn’t get confused w similar sounding words. But due to results from wilcoxen test difference is not statistically significant so does not make a difference

Question 5

Generalisability

Answer 5

Make up
Androcentric
Culture bias
Ethnocentric
Private school educated
All 17
Should have used stratified sample, not opportunity sample

Question 6

Reliability

Answer 6

Has standardised procedures, can be easily replicated
No specialist equipment, can use exact same words as Baddeley
Same words, same order, same time

Question 7

Validity

Answer 7

Recall words in same order, reduced risk words could mean something or be unfamiliar
In a school environment gives ecological validity, used to taking tests
No task validity as in normal situation wouldn’t be asked to recall 10 words in order, not representative of everyday environment, demand characteristics, artificial behaviour
Should do test in different room to remove any distractions

Question 8

Ethics

Answer 8

No psychological harm or distress
Debriefed and told them the true aim

Weren’t told true aim, lacked informed consent
Upset if others got more
Could have caused stress if pps felt pressure

Question 9

Alternative hypothesis

Answer 9

Significantly more acoustically dissimilar words will be recalled the acoustically similar words

Question 10

Null hypothesis

Answer 10

There will be no difference in amount of acoustically similar and dissimilar words recalled. Any difference would be due to chance

Question 11

Which test is used

Answer 11

Wilcoxin critical value table

Question 12

Why use the wilcoxin test

Answer 12

Test of difference
Levels of measurement is ordinal
Research design is repeated measures