Alan Baddeley

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Alan Baddeley FRS, CBE is professor of psychology at the University of York. He is known for his work on working memory, in particular for his multiple components model.

Baddeley graduated from University College London in 1956 and obtained an MA from Princeton University in 1957, followed by a PhD from University of Cambridge in 1962.

His study in 1975 on 'Capacity of Short Term Memory' aimed to see whether people could remember more short words than long words in a recall test and so to show whether pronunciation time or number of items determines the capacity of short term memory.

Findings: Participants could recall considerably more short words than long words. The number of words they could articulate in around 2 seconds appeared to be the amount of words they could recall. There was positive correlation between reading speed and memory span.

His study of 'Encoding in Short Term Memory and Long Term Memory' in 1966 explored acoustic and semantic coding in Short Term Memory and Long Term Memory.

Findings: Words with similar sounds were found to be harder to recall using STM than words with dissimilar sounds. Similar meanings had only a slight negative effect on STM The recall of semantically similar words from LTM was much worse than semantically dissimilar words. Acoustics had no effect when looking at LTM.

Baddeley has also part authored a number of neuropsychological tests including the Doors and People, Children's Test of Nonword Repetition (CN REP), the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test (RBMT), Autographical Memory Interview (AMI), Visual Patterns Test (VPT) and the Speed and Capacity of Language Processing Test (SCOLP).