Baddeley (1966b)

• Baddeley (1966b) - The influence of acoustic and semantic similarity on long term memory for word sequences.
• The aim of the study was to investigate if the influence of acoustic and semantic word similarity on learning and recall in the short term and long term memory.
• A lab experiment was used and the participants were assigned to one of four word list conditions
• List A - 10 acoustically similar words (man, can, cat, map)
• List B - 10 acoustically dissimilar words (pit, few, cow, mat)
• List C - 10 semantically similar words (great, large)
• List D - 10 semantically dissimilar words (good, huge)
• Acoustically similar - similar in sound
• Semantically similar - similar in meaning
• Lists B and D were control conditions for list A and C
• The experiment began by presenting a list of ten words on a projector where one word would be shown every three seconds. After participants did six tasks involving memory for digits and then were asked to recall the word list in one min in the correct order. This process was repeated over four learning trials and there was a surprise retest at the end.
• Baddeley found that recall of acoustically similar words was worse than acoustically dissimilar words in the initial phase of learning
• Baddeley found that semantically similar words were more difficult to learn than semantically dissimilar words
• Baddeley found than significantly fewer semantically similar words were recalled in the retest
• Baddeley concluded that encoding in the long term memory is largely semantic and encoding in the short term memory is largely acoustic.
• A strength of the study is that is was conducted in a lab environment with standardized procedures therefore the study is replicable allowing reliability to be established.
• This study was highly controlled meaning a cause and effect relationship between the IV and the DV can be established.
• The independent variables in this study were the four word lists
• A weakness of this study was that it was a lab experiment so it is not representative of real life. The task used was not typical of how we use memory in an everyday context.
• This study lacked mundane realism because lots of rehearsal was used which likely exaggerated the memory process because of the experimental procedure.