Baddeley

Question 1

Aim

Answer 1

To test the role of acoustic and semantic factors on the LTM

Question 2

Sample

Answer 2

• 72 male and females from Applied Psychology Research Unit
• assigned to 1 of 4 conditions:
  acoustically similar - 15
  acoustically dissimilar - 20
  semantically similar - 16
  semantically dissimilar - 21

Question 3

Procedure

Answer 3

1. list of words presented via projector
2. 6 tasks for remembering an 8 digit long sequence of numbers
3. recall word list in 1 min in correct order
   (2 and 3 repeated 4 times)
4. 15 min interference task
5. surprise retest on word list sequence

Question 4

Results and conclusions

Answer 4

most significant findings:
- Acoustically similar words were harder to recall than acoustically dissimilar in learning trials - STM impacted by acoustic factor - STM encodes acoustically

• Semantically similar words were harder to recall that semantically dissimilar in surprise retest - LTM impacted by semantic factor - LTM encodes semantically

Question 5

Strength

Answer 5

• Reliabilty - standardised procedure - all ppts shown same word lists for same amount of time in each condition - each did 4 trials and a retest - can check for consistency of results

Question 6

Weaknesses

Answer 6

• Eco val - done in highly controlled lab conditions - not naturalistic - not normally asked to remember word lists - may not reflect actual encoding - lowered validity
• Generalisability - each condition only had around 15-21 ppts in - may not represent performance of other people in general population