Cognitive studies (Baddely and Schmolk et al)

Question 1

What is the name and date of the cognitive classic study?

Answer 1

Baddeley 1966(b)

Question 2

What is the aim of the cognitive classic study?

Answer 2

To investigate the influence of acoustic and semantic word similarity on learning and recall in both short term memory and long term memory

Question 3

Who were the participants in the cognitive classic study? What participant design was used?

Answer 3

Men and women from the Applied Psychology Research Unit.

Independent Groups Design

Question 4

Describe the procedure of the cognitive classic study.

Answer 4

4 word lists of 10 words (acoustically similar, acoustically different, semantically similar, semantically different)

Each word presented via projector at a rate of one word every three seconds

Participants then completed six tasks involving memory

Recall the word list in one minute by writing the sequence in the correct order

Repeated over four trials

15 minute interference task

Surprise retest

Question 5

What were the results of the cognitive classic study?

Answer 5

Recall of the acoustically similar sounding words is worse than the dissimilar sounding words

Semantically similar words were more difficult to learn than the semantically dissimilar words

Question 6

What is the conclusion of the cognitive classic study?

Answer 6

Participants found it more difficult to recall acoustically similar words which suggests that short term memory is largely acoustic.

The last recall of semantically similar words was impaired suggesting that long term memory is semantic.

Question 7

Evaluate the cognitive classic study in terms of generalisability.

Answer 7

The sample used was very small, only 20 participants that were all from the same place, ‘The Applied Psychology Research Unit’. This small and narrow sample would ordinarily affect generalisability but as this is a study on memory, which is seen as universal, a narrow sample should not affect results. The results and conclusions should be true of all individuals.

Question 8

Evaluate the cognitive classic study in terms of reliability.

Answer 8

The study is high in reliability. Underwood (1951) and Underwood and Goad (1951) suggested that long term memory is affected by semantic similarity in the learning stage. As there is consistency between the findings and further support from other researchers, the study can be said to be reliable.

Question 9

Evaluate the cognitive classic study in terms of reliability.

Answer 9

The study has a standardised procedure and the word lists are clearly defined. For example, the words were broadcast via projecter at a rate of one word every three seconds and they had one minute to write the order down. This means that the study could be replicated by other researchers to gain similar results.

Question 10

Evaluate the cognitive classic study in terms of applications

Answer 10

The findings can be applied to real life, for example, in education. He found that we encode semantically in our long term memory has enabled teachers to promote the best learning strategy for remembering revision. Therefore, it shows us that the best revision technique is to learn the meaning of something rather than just learning it.

Question 11

Evaluate the cognitive classic study in terms of validity

Answer 11

The experiment took place in a laboratory where high control over extraneous variables was possible. Therefore, we can be certain that encoding was being measured and so the results make it possible to establish a cause and effect relationship.

The study is low in mundane realism as the act of being told to learn word lists is not typical of everyday situations. This means that the DV is not being measured in a realistic way which would reflect learning and recall in everyday life. This lowers validity

Question 12

Evaluate the cognitive classic study in terms of ethics.

Answer 12

Some ethical guidelines were broken. The surprise recall task at the end of the study may have breached informed consent. This means that the study has an element of deception however it can be argued that it was necessary.

Question 13

What is the name and date of the cognitive contemporary study?

Answer 13

Schmolck et al (2002)

Question 14

What is the aim of the cognitive contemporary study?

Answer 14

The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of brain damage on semantic memory by comparing patients with brain damage with a control group. They also wanted to determine if HM was unique in the way his brain damage affected his memory differently compared to others with similar damage

Question 15

Who were the participants in the cognitive contemporary study? What participant design was used?

Answer 15

In the experimental group, three had damage to their medial temporal lobe, two had damage in the hippocampus and the last one was HM. The control group was made up of eight participants who did not suffer from brain damage, they acted as a baseline measure. It was a matched pairs design

Question 16

Describe the procedure of the cognitive contemporary study.

Answer 16

Participants were given 13 tasks on between three and five separate occassions. All of the participants did tasks 1-9 however only some participants were given additional tasks to complete.

One task was the ‘semantic features’ test. This involved participants answering yes/no questions about the features of an object.

A further example was the pyrimid and palm tree test. Participants were given a target picture and two test pictures and were asked which test picture went best with the target picture.

Another task was a colouring object task where participants were asked to colour 28 line drawings of objects using appropriate colours.

Question 17

What were the results of the cognitive contemporary study?

Answer 17

Patients with hippocampus damage were able to point out, make and answer questions about objects with accuracy and were able to comparable with the control group. The patients with medial temporal damage struggled to be able to do these things. HM had problems defining objects giving less detail and making more errors despite being less impaired overall.

Question 18

What is the conclusion of the cognitive contemporary study?

Answer 18

The deficits in semantic knowledge are most likely to be related to temporal lobe damage. The more progressed the semantic dementia, the greater the struggles with semantic memory.

Question 19

Evaluate the cognitive contemporary study in terms of generalisability.

Answer 19

Schmolck et al used a very small and narrow sample. Only three patients had damage to their medial temporal lobe, two had damage in the hippocampus and the last one was HM. These are very specific injuries that they gained in unique ways. Therefore it may make the results unrepresentative to the wider population.

Question 20

Evaluate the cognitive contemporary study in terms of reliability.

Answer 20

This study is highly reliable because it has a standardised procedure such as the order of the tests that were given. This allows other researchers to replicate the study and find similar results. Dr Schmolck also used 14 raters to check the participants’ scores and their agreement

Question 21

Evaluate the cognitive contemporary study in terms of applications

Answer 21

Helps other cognitive psychologists to understand the brain’s role in memory and introduces a more biological element.

Question 22

Evaluate the cognitive contemporary study in terms of validity

Answer 22

The study has low ecological validity. All of the tasks the participants had to complete were artificial and did not reflect everyday life. Other research asked their participants to recall the neighbourhoods that they grew up in and found they performed well at that. This suggests that the results might not be valid.

Question 23

Evaluate the cognitive contemporary study in terms of ethics.

Answer 23

One ethical issue is that the patients could not give valid consent due to their memory deficits. Therefore the study can be seen to be unethical.