reconstructive memory/ schema theory

Question 1

what did Bartlett suggest

Answer 1

Bartlett’s central insight was that memory is not like a tape recorder: it doesn’t faithfully play back our experiences. Instead, it changes or “reconstructs” them imaginatively.

Question 2

what are schemas

Answer 2

schemas can be thought of mental representations which are built up through past experiences, organise our past experiences and provide ways of understanding future experiences. they are parcels of stored knowledge or a mental representation of a specific event or object.

Question 3

what did bower et al find?

Answer 3

there was a considerable agreement about the events when participants were asked a similar question eg 73% mentioned sitting down and looking at menu- at least 15 events formed many participants knowledge of going to a restaurant.

Question 4

schemas provide us with preconceived expectations to help make incoming information more predictable. these expectations can be fixed or variable info.

Question 5

THE WAR OF THE GHOSTS

Answer 5

Bartlett came up with the idea of “reconstructive memory” during a game of ‘Chinese Whispers’. He developed a study based on this game. Bartlett showed 20 students a Native American ghost story (The War of the Ghosts) which had unusual features. He asked them to read it then recall it on several occasions after a few hours, days, weeks or even years – a technique called serial reproduction (and a Repeated Measures design). Bartlett compared how the recalled versions of the story differed from the original.

Participants shortened the story when they reproduced it, from 330 words to 180 words, with the shortest reproduction happening after the longest gap (two years).

Participants also confabulated details, changing unfamiliar parts of the story to familiar ideas in line with their schemas: canoes and paddles became boats and oars, hunting seals became fishing.

Participants rationalised the story, coming up with explanations for baffling parts of the story. For example, in later reproductions, participants missed out the “ghosts” and just described a battle between Native American tribes.

Bartlett didn’t use many experimental controls, asking participants to reproduce the story whenever was convenient. He bumped into one student in the street two years later and asked her to reproduce The War of the Ghosts there and then. The changes in the stories were also down to his own subjective opinion.

Question 6

evidence

Answer 6

• war of the ghosts

Question 7

application

Answer 7

+ EWT could be distorted by pre existing schemas.
for example, in research where participants had to recall whether a white/ black person was holding a razor to the throat of a victim ( black was victim) it was found that participants recalled black person with razor.

Question 8

S/W

Answer 8

• schemas are not tangible, therefore it is hard to objectively measure the impact on the schemas on active memory processes. this decreases how scientific it is
• seen as reductionist as factors in real memory situations can not be reconstructed using schemas.

CA less reductionist than MSM/WMM

+ can generate for ID

Question 9

conclusion

Answer 9

theory may be too simplistic because it struggles to explain why things that do not fit in with our schema can be remembered better than those consistent with our schema.

Question 10

alternatives

Answer 10

:) the theory can be seen as stronger than the MSM as it further highlights that memory is not a passive process from store to store, but it is active and impacted by individual differences and expectations that are used to create schemas.

CA - can not explain the difference between STM and LTM as focuses on reconstruction of memory based on prior experience.