Coding

• Baddeley (1966) Aim


  Investigate coding of STM and LTM
• 75 participants were randomly allocated to 4 groups and asked to recall one of 4 word lists, repeated 4 times
• Word lists


  • List A: Acoustically similar words
  • List B: Acoustically dissimilar words
  • List C: Semantically similar words
  • List D: Semantically dissimilar words
• Each of these words was only 1 syllable to prevent word difficulty from affecting the outcomes
• To test coding in the STM


  Participants were given a list containing the same words as earlier but in the wrong order, and were asked to rearrange them in the correct order
• To test coding in LTM


  Participants performed an unrelated task for 20 minutes to prevent rehearsal, then were asked to recall the words
• For STM


  Participants given list A had the worst recall of only 10% compared to participants given the other lists (around 60-80%)
• This suggested that participants confused similar sounding words, leading Baddeley to conclude that STM is coded acoustically
• For LTM


  Participants with list C had recall of only 55% compared to those with other lists (70-80%)
• This suggested they confused similar meaning words, which led to the conclusion that information in the LTM is stored semantically