Cognitive Psychology - Classic Study

Question 1

What did Baddeley study in his 1966b study?

Answer 1

Acoustic and semantic similarity in LTM

Question 2

What was the aim of this study?

Answer 2

Is recall from LTM affected by semantically or acoustically similar words?

Question 3

What was the procedure?

Answer 3

Lab experiment, four lists recalled after 20 mins - acoustically/ semantically similar/ dissimilar words.

Question 4

What were the findings?

Answer 4

LTM recall - forgetting of acoustically dissimilar list. No effect for semantic lists.

Question 5

What were the conclusions?

Answer 5

‘Puzzling’ results suggested LTM encoding was acoustic. But not a true test of LTM, so more experiments conducted.

Question 6

Evaluate Baddeley’s study. (High internal validity)

Answer 6

Well-controlled procedures (matched lists) avoids confounding variables an demonstrates cause - and - effect.

However a confounding variable not controlled in experiment 1 was the influence of STM on LTM therefore conducted more experiments.

Question 7

Evaluate Baddeley’s study (Low external validity)

Answer 7

Treated the STM/LTM interaction as confounding, making the tack artificial and unlike real life encoding.

Question 8

Evaluate Baddeley’s study (Application of learning to learn)

Answer 8

Improves long term recall.
Revision - semantic strategies (e.g. reorganisation) not just repetition.

Question 9

Evaluate Baddeley’s study. (Issues and debates)

Answer 9

Illustrates reductionism because simplest cognitive processes studied which were divorces from social context, humans viewed as machines.