STM research Flashcards
What did Baddeley (1966) study focus on?
Research into short term memory and the coding of short term memory (STM) and long term memory (LTM).
How did Baddeley divide participants in his study?
He divided participants into 4 groups based on the type of words they heard: acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar, and semantically dissimilar.
What were the findings when participants recalled words immediately?
Participants tended to do worse with acoustically similar words.
What were the findings when participants recalled words after 20 minutes?
Participants tended to do worse with semantically similar words.
What conclusion can be drawn from Baddeley’s study?
This supports the view that STM and LTM are encoded differently: STM is encoded acoustically, while LTM is encoded semantically.
What is one strength of lab studies like Baddeley’s?
They control for extraneous variables, allowing for the establishment of a cause-and-effect relationship.
What are some weaknesses of lab studies?
They may lack ecological validity, can be costly, and may have high levels of demand characteristics.
What is a key point in a PEEL paragraph regarding Baddeley’s study?
One strength of research into coding is that it is often conducted in controlled laboratory conditions.
What does the example in the PEEL paragraph illustrate?
Baddeley’s study allowed for manipulation of word types and control of extraneous variables, enhancing internal validity.
Why is establishing a cause-and-effect relationship important?
It means the research has high internal validity.
What technique did Jacob develop in his study?
Jacob developed a technique to measure digit span, which is the number of items that can be stored in Short-Term Memory (STM).
How did Jacob’s study measure digit span?
A researcher read out digits (e.g., 2591) and the participant attempted to recall them. If correct, more digits were read until the participant could no longer recall the order correctly.
What were the findings of Jacob’s study regarding average digit span?
The average digit span with numbers was 9.3, and with letters, it was 7.3.
What is Miller’s Magical Number?
Miller proposed that we can hold seven items in STM, plus or minus two.
What did Miller believe about STM storage?
Miller believed that STM stores chunks of information rather than individual numbers or letters.
What was the method used in Peterson & Peterson’s study on STM duration?
Participants were given a trigram and a 3-digit number to remember, then asked to count backwards from the number to prevent rehearsal.
What were the findings of Peterson & Peterson’s study on STM duration?
Recall success was around 90% after 3 seconds, dropping to 10% after 6, 9, and 12 seconds, and to 5% after 18 seconds.
What does the duration research by Peterson & Peterson prove?
It proves that time does affect Short-Term Memory.
What is a weakness of the research into duration of STM?
One weakness is that it often uses meaningless stimuli.
Why is the use of meaningless stimuli a weakness in duration research?
The stimuli lack external validity as they do not reflect real-life memory activities.
