evaluation

• coding - strength - separate stores

  one strength of Baddeleys study is that it identified a clear diffe3ence between two memory stores

  later research showed that there are some exceptions to Baddeleys findings. But the idea that STM uses mostly acoustic coding and LTM mostly semantic has stood the test of time.

  this was an important step in out understanding go the memory system, which led to the multi-store mode.
• coding - limitation - artificial stimuli

  one limitation of Baddeleys study was that it used quite artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material

  for example, the word lists had no personal meaning to participants

  so B finding may not tell us much about coding in different kinds of memory tasks, especially in everyday life. when processing more meaningful information, people may use semantic coding even for STM tasks.

  this suggests that the findings from this study have limited application.
• capacity - strength - replication

  one strength is that J study has been replicated

  the study is a very old one and early research in psychology often lacked adequate controls. for example, some participants digit scans might have been underestimated because they were distracted during testing (confounding variable)

  despite this j findings have been confirmed by other, better controlled studies since. (Bopp and Verhaegen)

  this suggests that j study is a valid test of digit span in STM.
• capacity - limitation - chunk amount

  one limitation of millers research is that he may have overestimates STM capacity

  Cowan reviewed other research and concluded that the capacity of STM is only about 4 chunks

  this suggests that the lower end of Millers estimate (5) its more appropriate than 7 items.
• duration - limitation - artificial stimuli

  one limitation of Petersons study was that it used quite artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material

  the study is not completely irrelevant because we do sometimes try to remember fairly meaningless material

  even so, recalling consonant syllables does not reflect most everyday memory activities where what we are trying to remember is meaningful

  this means the study lacked external validity
• duration - strength - external validity

  one strength is that Bahricks study has high external validity

  this is because the researchers investigated meaningful memories

  when studies on LTM were conducted with meaningless pictures to be remembered, recall rates were lower

  this suggests hat Bahricks findings reflect a more real estimate if the duration of LTM.