Sebastian And Hernandez-Gil (2012) Flashcards
Describe the aims of Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil.
To study the development pattern of working memory over time, including changes from aging or dementia.
To analyse the development pattern of the phonological loop in children aged 5-17 years old.
To look at the decline of digit span in older people - Alzheimer’s and fronto-temporal dementia.
Describe the sample of Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil.
570 volunteers aged 5-17 years old from the Spanish population and various schools in Madrid. No ppts had repeated a school year or had learning difficulties such as in reading or writing.
Describe the procedure of Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil.
- Participants were split into 5 groups age 5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-14 and 15-17 years old - covering 13 year groups.
- Digit span was measured with ppts tested individually in their break time.
- The sequences were read aloud, one per second.
- Each time they got a sequence right another digit was added to increase the span and the ppts tried again starting with 3 sequences of 3 digits.
- Instructions required ppts to listen carefully and recall the digits in the same order as presented and the digit span measure was the number of digits in the sequence where they recalled at least 2/3 sequences correctly.
Describe the findings of Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil.
Digit span increased with age as the preschool children (aged 5) had very low digit spans with a mean of 3.76 whereas the mean of the secondary school children aged 15-17 was 5.83.
Alzheimer’s patients had a higher digit spans than the 5 year olds of 4.20 but not significantly different than the other age groups.
Describe the conclusions of Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil.
Digit span increases with age from 5-17 contrasting with Anglo-Saxon data as other studied demonstrated that digit span increased to 15 years and then reached an adult level of around 7 digits.
This study highlighted the idea of differences in word length and how long it takes so say between Spanish and English - Baddeley finding that memory span is affected by lists using long words compared to short words, subvocal rehearsal may be important as the longer it takes to say a digit the more the trace would decay and the easier it is to lose the information when rehearsing.
Strengths of Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil.
G - Memory is universal.
R - This study uses standardised procedures which involved reading digits one per second in 3 trials and each time the ppt got a sequence right another digit was added. They had to recall 2/3 correctly with both the right digits and the right order. This is good because it allows for other researchers to repeat the study in order to collect a new set of results that they can then use to compare with the results of Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil’s research. Therefore this allows for consistency to be checked which in turn increases the reliability of the study.
A - One application is to help explain peoples’ crucial real life cognitive skills and abilities. For example we are able to understand the development of the phonological loop in children. As a result we are able to use this when it comes to teaching young children as we can notice any learning difficulties that may occur due to issues with the phonological loop.
V - One strength is that this study has high control of extraneous variables. This was done by matching the 570 Spanish ppts due to not having any learning difficulties that may have affected their digit spans. By eliminating these issues such as reading or writing issues they were able to control for education and cognitive differences. Therefore this means that there is high internal validity making the findings more accurate as a cause and effect can be inferred.
E - N/A
Weaknesses of Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil.
G - This study has limited generalisability due to all participants being from various schools in Madrid. An issue with this is that Spanish words are typically longer than English words meaning that the ppts ability to remember each sequence will be lower due to the word-length effect. Therefore this is unrepresentative of the wider population and other cultures digit spans, making this ethnocentric.
R -
A -
V - One issue is that the study has low mundane realism. This is because they provided participants with digits to assess the phonological loop through the correct recall of sequences of digits with 2/3 correct in the right order. Therefore this makes it difficult to apply the results to explain how we use our phonological loop in real life as the method is too artificial.
