Practical. Flashcards
Aims of the Cognitive Practical.
To investigate the effect of acoustic similarity on Short-term memory.
Experimental and Null Hypothesis.
Experimental- A larger amount of the ten acoustically dissimilar words will be recalled then the ten acoustically similar words, following an ordered presentation of each word for three seconds and forty seconds available for recall.
Null- There will be no difference between the recall or ten acoustically similar or dissimilar words after the presentation. Any nominal difference will be due to luck or chance.
Procedure.
We have used an independent groups design, with randomly allocated groups. The sample will be an opportunity. I will select two participants at random and will give them both a set of standardized instructions ensuring they know their rights and role in the procedure. After gaining fully-informed consent, I will show the participant the words at 3-second intervals, and give them 40 seconds to recall as many as possible. This is a partial imitation of Baddeley’s 1966b experiment and will use the same word lists for acoustically similar words.
Results.
At a glance, it seems close- A mean of 7.5 for similar sounding words and 6.9 for dissimilar. After completing a Mann Whitney U, we found the results to not be statistically significant. We, therefore, rejected our experimental hypothesis and accepted our null.
Conclusion.
We found that there was no significant difference between acoustic of words, suggesting similarity in Short-term memory. However, there were a few clear outliers in the results, suggesting skewed data.
Evaluative Strengths.
Reliability- We used heavily standardized instructions and all had the same script to read to participants. This ensured replicability.
Ethically- we ensured all aspects of good ethics were fulfilled (CDCDWP).
Applicability- in theory, our experiment had the potential to be applicable. The results could aid strategies to help revision or dementia sufferers.
Evaluative Weaknesses.
Generalisability- The research was not generalizable- we used a tiny sample from the same age group and socio-economic status.
Reliability-we used different experimenters which could cause researcher effects.
Applications- as we concluded no statistical significance, there were no applications.
