Changing the way you learn

Baddeley (1966): The influence of acoustic and semantic similarity on long-term memory

Aim
1. To determine how long-term memory is affected by semantic and acoustic encoding
Procedure
1. 3 experiments conducted
2. Men and women from the Applied Psychology Research Unit Subject Panel
3. Assigned 1 of 4 list conditions
4. Independent groups
5. Lab experiment
Experiment 1
1. Ppts attempted to learn 1 of 4 lists of 10 words
  1. Lists were either acoustically or semantically similar or control words of equal frequency
2. Lists learned for 4 trials
  1. After which, the ppts were given a 20 minute digit memory task
    1. Then asked to recall the word list
Experiment 3
1. 4 lists of 10 words
  1. List A: 10 acoustically similar words
  2. List B: 10 acoustically dissimilar words matched in terms of frequency of everyday use to List A(control group)
  3. List C: 10 semantically similar words
  4. List D: 10 semantically dissimilar words - matched in terms of frequency of everyday use to List C (control group)
2. 4 groups of ppts
3. Shown 10 words - 3 seconds each
  1. Distractor task - 6 tasks involving memory of digits
    1. Given words and asked to recall in order in 1 minute
      1. Results gathered - evidence for STM
        Repeat stages 1-4 X 4 - learning trials - LTM
        15 minute interference task - copying 8 digit sequences
        Surprise recall test of 10 words - order
        Results gathered - evidence for LTM
Results
1. Recall of List A lower than recall of List B - not significant difference
  1. No difference for C and D
  2. Acoustic encoding was initially difficult
    1. But didn't affect long-term recall
2. Recall of List C was 55% accurate and List D was 85% accurate - significant difference
  1. No difference for A and B
  2. LT recall was a lot worse for semantically similar words than semantically dissimilar words
    1. Semantically dissimilar words are unrelated and aren't likely to be mixed up in recall
Conclusion
1. Later retest recall of List 3 was impaired compared to all other lists because they were semantically similar
  1. Suggesting that LTM is largely but not exclusively semantic
2. Because recall of acoustically similar words were initially more difficult to encode
  1. Suggests that STM is largely acoustic
Evaluation
1. Strengths
  1. Men and women used
    1. No gender bias
  2. Highly controlled lab experiment
    1. Standardised procedure
    2. timing of visual stimulus
  3. Can be applied to dementia and dyslexia
  4. No order effects (independent groups)
  5. Ethics
    1. No deception
    2. Debriefed
    3. No physical harm
2. Weaknesses
  1. Small sample
  2. All from USA
  3. Individual differences
  4. Low ecological validity
    1. Unnatural setting
    2. Tasks required are artificial
  5. Ethics
    1. possible embarrasment
    2. psychological harm

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Baddeley (1966): The influence of acoustic and semantic similarity on long-term memory

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	Created by Ella Middlemiss almost 8 years ago