Baddeley's study (1966)

• What was the aim of Baddeley's study?

  To see if there was a difference in the type of encoding used in the STM and LTM
• What kind of experiment design did he use in the experiment?

  Independent groups design:

  4 ground of participants- A,B,C,D- were all given different lists of 10 words
• Describe the method used for Group A and Group B

  Group A heard 12 sets of 5 words from List A, which was acoustically similar. After each set, they were asked to immediately recall the words in the correct oder.

  Group B did the same with List B which was acoustically dissimilar
• Why did the participants have acard with all 10 words from the list?


  As it was the oder of recall that mattered
• Describe the method used for Group C and D

  Group C did the same with List C, which was semantically similar, and Groupd D with List D, which was semantically dissimilar, except they both waited 20 minutes before recall
• What were the results?

  Baddeley found that participants did worse with List A and C, than Lsit B and D
• What were the conclusions based on the results?

  As List A was recalled worse, given it has acoustically similar words, this suggests that words are encoded acoustically in the STM

  As List was recalled worse, given it has semantically similar words, this suggests words are encoded semantically in the LTM
• Give a strength of the study


  A controlled experiment: the study was conducted in a lab where all participants were given a hearing test before hand to ensure there was no other affecting factors
• Give some weaknesses of the study

  STM may sometimes be visual- Baddeley overlooked the cases where encoding is visual rather than acoustic. For example, if different stimuli such as pictures were used.

  The LTM was tested 20 minutes, but was that enough?