Research into Coding in Memory Flashcards
What are the three things involved nature of memory?
Coding, capacity and duration
What is coding referred to as?
Coding refers to the format in which information is stored in the various memory stores, it involves converting information from one format to another.
What were the conclusions drawn from Baddeley et al’s research?
Baddeley concluded short term memory preferred to code acoustically and long term memory prefers to code semantically
What are the three different formats to store information?
Visually (pictures)
Acoustically (sounds)
Semantically (meaning behind experience/picture)
Who conducted research about how the memory store code information?
Baddeley et al
Outline the research conducted by Baddeley et al:
Baddeley conducted research into coding. He presented his participants with 4 lists of words that were either semantically similar similar, semantically dissimilar, acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar. Participants were shown the words one at a time, then required to recall the words immediately or 20 mins after being shown them.
What were the findings of the research conducted by Baddeley et al?
- Baddeley found the participants struggled to recall the order of acoustically similar words correctly immediately after seeing them. Baddeley concluded the short term memory was focusing too much on the sound of words, which was causing confusion and making recall harder. This was referred to as acoustic confusion
- It was also found that participants struggled with recalling the order of semantically similar words after 20 mins. Baddeley concluded semantic confusion was occurring as the meaning of the words was getting mixed with the actual task.
What is a limitation of Baddeley et al’s research?
Baddeley’s study used artificial stimuli, which meant the words had no meaning to the participants. As a result, the findings may lack ecological validity because it does not tell us much about coding in different kinds of memory. When processing more meaningful information, people may use semantic coding even for short term memory tasks. This suggest that the findings from the study have limited application to memory in the real world
How many evaluation points are there?
There are two evaluation points
What is a strength of Baddeley et al’s research?
Baddeley provided evidence for the fundamental differences between short and long term memory. Despite later research showing exceptions to Baddeley’s findings, the idea that the short term memory codes mostly acoustically and the long term memory codes mostly semantically has stood the test of time. This research has also acted as an important step in understanding the memory system, which lead to the multi - store model being created
