Other cognitive studies

Other cognitive studies

1. Duration of short term memory

   • Aim and procedure
     • Investigate how long term information can be retained in short term memory
     • In a lab experiment, P's were given sets of nonsense consonant trigrams to learn
     • To prevent rehearsal they had to count backwards in threes from a given 3-digit number
     • Participants were aware that they would be asked to recall the trigrams in the correct order
     • A delay of 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds was introduced before recall
   • Results and conclusions
     • After 3 seconds
       • 80% of trigrams recalled
     • After 6 seconds
       • 50% of trigrams recalled
     • After 9 seconds
       • 30% of trigrams recalled
     • After 18 seconds
       • 10% of trigrams recalled
     • Conclusion that STM lasts no more than 20 seconds
     • Without rehearsal, information fades quickly
     • Supports trace decay and STM-LTM distinction
   • Evaluation
     • Nonesense trigrams make the stimuli meaningless and therefore the study more objective and scientific
     • This however makes it unrealistic
     • Everyday distractions - less focused than counting backwards, dont cause as high level of interference
     • Cannot be applied to everyday memory as we would not respond to meaningful information in the same way

2. LOP Experiment

   • Aim and procedure
     • To test the LOP theory by investigating whether words processed at different levels would afftect recognition of those words
     • 24 participants were shown 60 words via a tachistoscope
     • Asked a series of questions about the word
     • Quesstions required structural, phonetic or semantic processing
     • Asked to recognise the words from a list of 180 wors consisting of the original 60 and 120 new words
   • Results and conclusions
     • Structural
       • 17% recognised
     • Semantic
       • 65% recognised
     • Phonetic
       • 36% recognised
     • The deeper the processing, the better the recognition
   • Evaluation
     • Not informed words would be recognised later
     • Information is encoded according to relevance, but this rarely applies to lists of words
     • Unrealistic and simplistic
     • Ignored the role of imagery and emotion

3. Age and leves of processing

   • Aim and procedure
     • Investigate whether age affects the ability to process information at different levels
     • 96 participants (half aged about 72 and half aged about 24)
     • Showed a series of word pairs, presented one at a time via a computer screen
     • Some words were strongly associated (Cat-dog) and others were weakly associated (Cave-milk)
     • Participants answered questions about the word pair
     • After a distracter task, participants were told one word from a pair and asked to recall the other (intentional) or told to think of the first word that came to mind when given a word from a pair (incidental)
   • Results and conclusion
     • Older participants recalled fewer words than younger participants only when recall was incidental and the association between the word pairs was weak
     • Age deficit was not found for strong associates or deeper levels of processing
     • Age affects ability to encode meaningless information that we do not process at a deep level
   • Evaluation
     • Study in lab conditions - artificial environment which doesnt resemble real life
     • Remembering word paris is not typically how we use memory
     • Many controls were implimented to ensure word pairs were standardised and questions at each level of processing balenced
     • Cannot be sure that participants did not use alternative memory strategies to remember the words