Acoustic similarity

• How many participants were involved in the study?

  75 participants
• What was the purpose of presenting participants with a word list?

  To test short-term memory (STM)
• How many times was the word list repeated?

  Four times
• What were the two types of word lists used in the study?

  Acoustically similar and acoustically dissimilar
• What were the words in List 1?

  Acoustically similar

  cat, mat, sat, rat, hat
• What were the words in List 2?

  Acoustically dissimilar

  pit, day, cow, run, sea
• What task were participants given to test their STM?

  Rearrange words in the correct order
• What was the recall percentage for participants given List 1?

  10%
• Why did participants confuse words in List 1?

  Due to acoustic confusion
• What was the recall percentage for participants given List 2?

  About 85%
• What does the poor performance on List 1 suggest about STM encoding?

  STM is encoded acoustically
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the study's design?

  Strengths:

  • Controlled independent variable
  • Shows causality

  
  

  Weaknesses:

  • Lacks ecological validity
  • Artificial situation unlikely in real life
• Why might the findings of the study make 'cognitive sense'?

  Because of acoustic rehearsal in memory