Area- Memory/ Cognitive Aim Method
Experimental Design IV + How was it operationalised DV + How was it operationalised Extraneous variables Ethical Issues Results
Conclusion
Evaluation - Strengths
Evaluation - Weaknesses
Experiment/Study – Peterson and Peterson (1959) To investigate the duration of STM. Asked P's to recall strings of consonants (e.g FBK) selected. Recall delay was set to 3, 6, 9, 12 seconds during which rehearsal was prevented by participants counting backwards in threes from a target number. Each subject was tested a total of 8 times at each of the 6 delay intervals. Controlled lab experiment. Repeated measures How long before recalling consonants How many trigrams remembered Eg, how tired p’s are Consent, debreifing At 3-second intervals, 80% of trigrams were remembered. Recall got progressively worse as the time intervals lengthened. By 18 second interval, less than 10% trigrams were remembered. The information disappears or decays very rapidly from STM when rehearsal is prevented. Repeated measures design – avoids individual differences. Controlled conditions. Trigrams are artificial – lacks ecological validity. Loss of information may be down to capacity limitations than duration. The counting task may have displaced the trigram. Trigrams on earlier trials may have caused confusion, proactive interference, for the participants and so later trigrams are incorrectly recalled.
Proactive interference – where things that have already been learned make it harder to learn new things.