Memory

?

Encoding STM and LTM - Baddeley 1966

Advantages

  • A strength of this study is that there was a high degree of control in the study. This is because the study was a laboratory experiment and so the researcher had strict control over all variables. The researcher could therefore be sure that any changes to the DV were due to changes in the IV and not as a result of extraneous variables.
  • Another strength of this study is that the findings seem to be reliable. For example, Conrad 1964 also found that the STM uses acoustic encoding. He presented strings of letters to pps. A typical sring might be 'AKPJBSVL'. These were presented extremely quickly on a screen for approximately three quaters of a second. B and V were muddles with P but letter S was only very rarely muddled with P.

Disadvantages

  • A limitation of this study is that it is low in ecological validity. This is because it was a laboratory experiment. Whilst this method ensures that the researcher has strict control over all variables, the set up  was very artificial. Learning word lists is not a day to day activity and so it is unlikely that the findings of this study can be generalised to real life situations.
  • A final limitation is that the study does not consider types of encoding other than semantic and acoustic. Some researchers argue that there are other forms of encoding and so the experiment may have ignored other important forms of encoding.

Evaluation

Conclusions: The results of this study show us that the STM encodes information based on how it sounds whereas LTM encodes information based on semantics (meaning)

Comments

Bobdabuilder

Report

I need to know the pros and cons in general