Coding, Capacity and Duration

Coding, Capacity and Duration

1. research on coding

   • Baddeley (1966)
     • Baddeley gave different lists of words to four groups of participants to remember
       • group 1: words sounded similar (acoustically similar)- cat,cab,can
         • group 2: words sounded different (acoustically dissimilar)- pit, few, cow
           • group 3: words with similar meaning (semantically similar)- great, large,big
             • group 4: words had different meaning (semantically dissimilar)- good, huge, warm
     • procedure:
       • participants were shown the original words and asked to recall them in the correct order.
     • Findings: When tested on STM, pp did worse on acoustically similar words (cat,can,cab). When tested on LTM (20 minute interval) pp did worse with semantically similar words.
       • Research suggests that information is coded semantically in LTM
     • AO3: Baddeley used artificial stimuli meaning that the material was not meaningful suggesting it's ungeneralisable and that findings have limited application

2. Research on Capacity