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Baddeley (1966b) - Coggle Diagram
Baddeley (1966b)
AO1
Aim
To investigate the influence of acoustic and semantic memory word similarity on learning and recall in LTM.
Procedure
There were 72 participants, men and women, who were recruited from the Applied psychology research unit.
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Each list of 10 words was presented via projected at a rate of 1 word for every 3 seconds in the correct order.
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The groups were given a 15 minute interference task involving coping eight digit sequences at their own pace they they were given a surprise retest on the word list sequence.
Findings
ecall in the acoustically similar condition (list A) and the acoustically dissimilar control list (list B) were very similar, including at the retest.
In LTM, acoustic similarity did mot affect the recall of the word order.
REcall in the semantically similar list condition (list C) was much worse than in the semantically dissimilar words control condition (list D).
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Conclusions
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The results showed that LTM learning was affected by the meaning of the words more than if the words sounded alike.
This is evidence that LTM uses largely semantic encoding unlike short term memory that uses acoustic.
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AO3
Reliability
The study was high in reliability as it was conducted in a controlled lab environment using a set of standardised instructions. (Same amount of words for each list and presented at the same rate of 1 word per 3 seconds) This means that the study can be regarded as replicable and if repeated there would be consistent results.
There is opposing evidence for Baddeley (1966b) from Frost (1972) and Nelson and Rothbart (1972). Frost showed that LT recalled was related to visual as well as semantic encoding. Nelson and Rothbart found evidence of acoustic encoding LTM.
Application
Baddeley's study has positive contributions and applications so society. Knowing how memory works can help people with dementia. STM can be improved by using sound and rehearsal and LTM can be improved by attaching meaning.
Validity
There is high internal validity as cause and effect can be established between the IV and the DV due to the highly controlled nature of the experiment. (Following the four trials Baddeley used a 15 minute interference task and surprise retest to measure the recall of the short term memory.
The study has low ecological validity as it was conducted in a lab setting using artificial tasks. Its not the typical way in which we use memory in an every day context and we do not often learn lists of random monosyllabic word therefore the ability to generalise Baddeley's findings to every day memory contexts such as learning in schools can be questioned.