Reconstructive Memory Model

Question 1

THE WAR OF THE GHOSTS

Answer 1

• supports model
• confabulation, (rationalisation)
• 20 students
• Native American ghost story
• serial reproduction

Question 2

ALPORT AND POSTMAN (1947)

Answer 2

• Supports model
• schemas,
• showed pps drawing of argument on subway train
• asked to describe picture
• black man was portrayed as well dressed in the picture but white pps described him as opposite - some even saying with a knife

Question 3

STEYVERS AND HEMMER (2012)

Answer 3

• Doesn’t support model
• confabulation (rationalisation)
• criticized bartletts war of the ghost
• said his pps were stressed and that’s why they got parts of the story wrong - not generalisable
  WEAKNESS OF RMM

Question 4

HOGEWAY DEMENTIA VILLAGE

Answer 4

• supports model
• application
• residents live and spend time in different areas of the village themed around their schemas

Question 5

LOFTUS AND PALMER (1974)

Answer 5

• supports model
• Confabulation -> rationalisation
• showed pps car crash and gave them a questionnaire
• 50% had critical question with intense verb - “smashed”
• 50% had critical question with less intense verb - “hit”
• pps with “smashed” said car was travelling at 40.8 mph on avg
• pps with “hit” said car was travelling at 34 mph on avg
• 1 week later pps asked if there was glass on the crash scene, it was falsely recalled by:
  > 12% of control group
  > 14% if hit group
  > 32% of smashed group
  RESULTS:
• eyewitnesses are unreliable as are controlled by leading qs
• when memories are reconstructed we change them by incorporating new info learned after incident
• incorporate schemas
• can’t tell what is true/false

Question 6

DEVLIN REPORT (1976)

Answer 6

• supports model
• application
• eyewitnesses repeat testimony - serial reproduction - levelling and sharpening
• leading Qs from layers/police make eyewitnesses unreliable -> memories change with more info
• Devlin report concluded that British juries shouldn’t convict someone from a witness

Question 7

Introduction for RMM essay

Answer 7

• The RMM was proposed by Frederick Bartlett, he suggested that memory doesn’t faithfully play back our experiences, instead, it changes them imaginatively.
• Bartletts main idea is that our memory is grouped into categories callled ‘schemas’ - cognitive frameworks that help us to organise and interpret information
• He suggested that we use assimilation and accommodation (levelling and sharpening) to create and update schemas.
• He said that when we recall an event, our schemas tell us what was supposed to happen, and we fill in the gaps in our memory (confabulation)

Question 8

Conclusion for RMM essay

Answer 8

• In conclusion, reconstructive memory is a very important idea because it suggests that eyewitnesses may not be reliable.
• However it is controversial because many of the studies supporting the RMM are either unscientific, artificial or both.
• In real life out memories may be more reliable than this theory makes out.