topic 2 - Bartlett (1932) War of ghosts Flashcards
what is the background to the study?
Bartlett wrote about experiments that he conducted using pictures and folk stories. One story was a North American folk tale called, “war on ghosts”. Bartlett chose this story because it was unfamiliar to the students and colleagues at Cambridge University. He hoped that the unfamiliarity of the story would shed light on the reconstructive nature of memory because his participants would be more likely to draw on their schemas to recall it.
what were the aims to the study?
the aim was to test the nature of reconstructive memory using an unfamiliar story and looking at whether or not personal schemas influence what is remembered from the story.
what was the procedure?
participants were first asked to read the war of ghosts story twice and then were later asked to recall it. Bartlett used both serial reproduction and repeated reproduction to test the recall of the story.
for serial reproduction, participants were asked to read the story then retell the story to another participant 15 to 30 minutes later, then that participant told the next participant and so on.
for the repeated reproduction, the same participant was asked to write out the story after 15 minutes. Then they were asked to recall the story several minutes, hours, days, months and even years later.
define serial reproduction.
serial reproduction is a technique where participants retell something to another participant to form a chai; this is how folk stories are passed down through cultures.
define repeated reproduction.
repeated reproduction is a technique where participants are asked to recall something again and again.
what were the results?
Bartlett uses qualitative analysis to look for and interpret changes to the stories that were recalled.
He found that repeated reproduction followed a similar form which meant that the theme or outline of the first reproduction tended to remain in later reproductions.
for both types of recall participants tried to make sense of the odd story by giving it meaning. this resulted in additions or changes such as making connection or giving reasons for events.
Participants tended to leave out unfamiliar or unpleasant parts of the story, particularly the unfamiliar place names. Lots of details became familiarised and simplified.
what was the conclusion?
Bartlett interpreted the results as evidence for the active and constructive nature of memory. participants did nor recall the story fully or accurately. instead they omitted details that did not fit with their schema and some details were altered by the influence of their schema.
what were the strengths of the study?
one strength, the use of a story as recall material is ecologically valid as it is more naturalistic as a test of everyday memory than other studies using trigrams.
another strength is that Bartlett replicated his procedure using various stories and pictures and found participants has the same tendency to omit and transform the material when remembering. This is a strength because the same findings have been found across other studies, this demonstrates that the findings are reliable.
the last strength, is that the results were gathered using qualitative analysis. qualitative data can be seen as a strength because the real nature of reconstructive memory can be understood through its meaning. It was appropriate for Bartlett to use quantitative analysis to see how individuals changed their version of the story, over time.
what were the weaknesses of the study?
a weakness is, the use of the story which was not familiar was illogical and contained strange words and concepts, therefore remembering this story was not an everyday task.
counter arguing a strength, the use of qualitative analysis could be seen as unscientific because Bartlett could have interpreted the participants recalled stories in light of his own theory and ideas on reconstructive memory.
Lastly, Bartlett did not always get participants to call the story at the same time intervals and he allowed each participant to read the story at their own reading pace, so this study could be criticised for lacking good controls. Normally an experiment follows strict timings and a standardised procedure, this means Bartlett study is not as scientific as it could have been.
define the term ‘reliable’.
reliable means, when the outcome of a study is consistent.
define the term “statistical analysis”.
mathematical calculations performed on data to see whether the findings could be due to chance.
define the term “standardised procedure”
where the procedure of a study is the same across all conditions.
