Encoding in LTM- Baddeley (1966)

Encoding in LTM- Baddeley (1966)

1. Baddeley constructed a pool of short, familiar words for each of four categories: 1= acoustically similar words 2=acoustically dissimilar words 3= semantically similar words 4= semantically dissimilar words

   • For each category, he presented a random sequence of 5 words and asked the participants to write them down immediately after presentation in serial order
     • He found that the words that sounded similar were much harder to remember than words in any other three categories.
       • Baddeley concluded that STM codes acoustically, just like Conrad did

2. Baddeley then modified his experiment to test LTM. He extended the length of the word lists from 5 to 10 and prevented the participants from rehearsing by interrupting them after each presentation

   • Each list was presented 4 times and then recall was tested after a 20-minute interval
     • Under these conditions, he found that acoustic similarity had no effect on recall but that words that were similar in meaning were poorly recalled

3. He concluded from this that LTM coded were mainly semantically

4. Methodological issues

   • This was a laboratory experiment
   • Although still an artificial setting, Baddeley used familiar words rather than consonants (as Conrad had done)

5. Ethical issues

   • There is no serious ethical issues in this kind of study but investigators always have to gain consent from participants and to debrief them afterwards