04. Reconstructive Memory & Schema Theory

Question 1

Describe Bartletts ink blot study.

Answer 1

He asked his participants to describe what ‘imaged’ in the pattern they saw. He found participants ‘rummaged about’ their own stored images to find the one that would best fit the ink blot pattern. Descriptions given were determined by participants’ own interests and experiences, even their mood.

Question 2

Define the term ‘effort after meaning’ that Bartlett coined.

Answer 2

Describes the considerable effort people made to connect a stimulus with knowledge, or experience they already posses. Once stimulus gains meaning, it can be assimilated (taken in and understood fully) and stored.

This suggests perception is not a passive process of receiving an image, but an active construction of what we think we see using our prior knowledge to guide the judgement.

Question 3

What did Bartlett decide about memory?

Answer 3

-Memory should be studied in a way to capture the relationship between memory and other cognitive processes (holistic).
-Memories are reconstructions.
-Memory is an active process: we store fragments of information which are put together at recall.
-Reconstructive memory is a theory of elaborate memory recall, in which the act of remembering is influenced by various other cognitive processes.
-This means memory is not an exact copy of the experience, it is often altered- elements go missing or become distorted.

Question 4

Describe Bartlett’s war of the ghosts (1932) supporting study.

Answer 4

Aim: To investigate how the memory of a story is affected by previous knowledge.

-Chose the folk tale because it was culturally unfamiliar, lacked any rational story order, the dramatic nature would encourage visual imaging, the conclusion was supernatural.
-20 British participants.

Question 5

What were the two conditions the participants were placed into when hearing the story of the war of the ghosts?

Answer 5

Group A: Heard the story and were asked to reproduce it after a short time and again repeatedly over days, weeks, months and years (longest time lapse to recall the story was 6 years)- (Repeated reproduction)

Group B: Heard the story and were asked to reproduce it, this was shown to another person who was asked to reproduce it, this chain was repeated several times- (Serial reproduction)

Question 6

What were the findings of Bartletts war of the ghosts study (1932)?

Answer 6

-The story was transformed over time.
-Unfamiliar details were left out, new information was added in, and phrases were altered to match the participants own culture.
-No significant differences between groups- participants in both groups changed the story to become more consistent with their own beliefs and cultural expectations (schema).

Question 7

What are the three patterns of distortion that took place during Bartletts war of the ghosts study?

Answer 7

1. Rationalisation
2. Confabulation
3. Levelling

Question 8

Define rationalisation.

Answer 8

The story became more consistent with the participants own cultural expectations, details were unconsciously changed to fit the norms of British culture e.g. Swapping canoe for boat. Ignoring details about ghosts and retelling the story as a battle. Someone dying at sun set when the story explains the person dying at ‘sun rose’.

Question 9

Define confabulation.

Answer 9

New information was added to fill in a memory so it makes sense (fill in gaps) e.g. Adding emotion.

Question 10

Define levelling.

Answer 10

The story became shorter with each rebelling as participants omitted info which was seen as not important.

Question 11

What was the conclusion of Bartlett’s war of the ghosts study?

Answer 11

Memory is reconstructed each time it is recalled, rarely accurate and prone to distortion, simplification etc. Reconstructions weren’t random, they made the story more conventional, coherent and meaningful to themselves.

The process of remembering is constructive in nature and influenced by inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) made by an individual.

Bartlett explained reconstructive memory using his schema theory.

Question 12

Define schema.

Answer 12

Schema: Mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing.

Schema’s develop over time; they develop in complexity with experience of the world until adults eventually develop a mental representation for everything.

Question 13

What do schemas do?

Answer 13

Help us to organise and interpret info. Prevent us from becoming overwhelmed by processing lots of info quickly (mental shortcut). Can alter the content of info so that it becomes consistent with our previous experiences/ beliefs & we can fill in gaps. However they may distort our interpretations of sensory info leading to perceptual errors.

Question 14

How does our memory make use of schemas?

Answer 14

Memory makes use of schemas to organise things. When we recall an event, our schemas tell us what is supposed to happen. The schemas might fill in the gaps in our memory (confabulation) and even put pressure on our mind to remember things in a way that fits with the schema, removing or changing details. Schemas are influenced by various factors such as personal experiences, cultural context and social interactions. But schemas may distort our interpretations of sensory information, leading to perceptual errors in memory.

Question 15

Schema theory summary.

Answer 15

When we encounter new knowledge/experiments the relevant schema is activated. We assume the situation matches the knowledge already contained in the schema - allows us to process new info efficiently but with some guesses on the situation. This can lead to errors in memory (knowledge that conflicts w/ existing schema could fail to be encoded, elements may be forgotten or distorted etc).

Question 16

What are schemas?

Answer 16

Stored packets of knowledge/mental representations. Mental framework of beliefs and expectations.

Question 17

Why do we have schemas?

Answer 17

Prevent us being overwhelmed by organising and interpret incoming information very quickly.

Question 18

Why are schemas different?

Answer 18

Develop in complexity with our own personal experiences of the world.

Question 19

What do schemas do?

Answer 19

Change content of information to be consistent with our schemas, and fill in gaps at recall.

Question 20

Describe Loftus & Palmer -supporting evidence

Answer 20

Car crash study - participants don’t always recall what they see accurately. After watching a car crash clip, participants were asked to estimate the speed of the car & report if they’d seen any broken glass. Participants who’d heard the word smashed incorporated it into their own memory and produced higher speed estimates than hit. Later when asked if they’d seen any broken glass 32% ‘smashed’ incorrectly recalled seeing glad compared to 14% ‘hit’ and 12% control. This shows memory can be affected by our schemas because participants recalled what they expected more than what they saw.

Question 21

Describe Loftus and Palmer’s Experiment 1

Answer 21

-45 American students from University and Washington formed an opportunity sample.
-This was a laboratory experiment with 5 conditions, only one was experienced by each participant (independent measures).
-7 films of traffic accidents, ranging in duration from 5 to 30 seconds were presented in random order to each group.
-After watching the film participants were asked to describe what had happened as if they were eyewitnesses.
-They were then asked specific questions including the question about “how fast were the cars going when they (smashed/collided/bumped/hit/contacted) each other?”
-The IV was the wording of the question and the DV was the speed reported by the participants.

Question 22

How does Loftus and Palmer (1974) support reconstructive memory?

(Experiment 1)

Answer 22

-Demonstrates that memories are stored as fragments and are pieced together at recall which is an active process of reconstruction because the verb influenced the speed.
-Participants who heard the verb ‘smashed’ incorporated it into their own memory and produced higher speed estimates compared to participants who heard the verb ‘hit’. As hit is a less intense verb these participants incorporated a less severe memory of the crash, therefore estimated a lower speed.

Question 23

Describe Loftus and Palmer’s experiment 2

Answer 23

-150 students were shown a one minute film which featured a car driving through the countryside followed by 4 seconds of multiple traffic accidents.

It was manipulated by:
-Asking 50 students “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”
-Another 50 “how fast were the cars going when they smashed each other?”
-And the remaining 50 participants were not asked a question at all (control group).

-One week later the dependent variable was measured, they had to answer 10 questions without seeing the film again one of which was: “Did you see any broken glass? Yes or no”
(There was no broken glass or the original film)

Findings: Participants who were asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed were more likely to report seeing broken glass.

Question 24

What is a problem with Loftus and Palmer’s research?

Answer 24

It was conducted in the setting of a lab, which could cause low ecological validity. The artificial setting could lead to unnatural behaviour of participants, leading to low ecological validity of the research. This is a weakness because the results obtained from the research cannot be generalised to real life settings.

Question 25

Wynn and Logie (1998)- opposing evidence

Answer 25

-Wanted to test if our memory of familiar stories changed as much as with unfamiliar ones (Bartlett had been criticised for his use of ‘War of ghosts” as it was unusual - may have effected validity by exaggerating his findings as story was unfamiliar to the ppts).
-Asked a number of undergrad students to describe their first week at uni, every few weeks. No matter how many times the details remained the same which implies there’s less reproduction in memory than Bartlett proposed.
-As a result his findings may not be generalisable to real life settings due to the artificial nature of his materials & little relevance to everyday memory.

Question 26

Application-strength

Answer 26

-Loftus’ research has been influential in our understanding of eye-witness testimonies. Findings have important implications for legal system (eye-witness statements in courtrooms). Loftus has highlighted that juries need to be aware that eye-witness accounts are not necessarily accurate and can be influenced by schemas.
-A consequence of this is that no convictions are now based on EWT alone, as it is untrustworthy. This is a strength as it improves our legal system and benefits society as a whole.

Question 27

What is an issue with how reconstructive memory and schemas can be applied?

Answer 27

-The knowledge that memory can be changed by the use of leading questions can be used to distort the memory of a person who is giving evidence to the police.
-This is a weakness because it could result in people’s memories being changed and inaccurate so could be used to convince innocent people of crimes. This is detrimental to society