Bartlett Study (cognitive) Flashcards
1
Q
Aim
A
To investigate how memory of a story is affected by type of reproduction.
2
Q
Bartlett Study (cognitive)
Procedure
A
- Participants read “The War of Ghosts” twice at normal pace
- 15 minutes later, participants “reproduced” the story
- Bartlett assigned the participants to one of two groups:
- Repeated reproduction: They were asked to reproduce the story after a short time and then again repeatedly through the course of a period of days or weeks
- Serial reproduction: They had to recall the story and retell it to another person, who retold the story to another person, etc.
3
Q
Bartlett Study (cognitive)
Findings
A
- Participants in both groups altered the story as they tried to remember it (created distortions)
- 3 patterns of distortion that were evident
-
Assimilation (normalization of new information to pre-existing knowledge)
- Story shifted towards the participants’ views and British cultural expectations
-
Leveling - Loss of details
- Story shortened as participants omitted information that was seen as insignificant
-
Sharpening - Interference are made to new information
- Details and emotions were added to story or order was changed
- Information is often being changed to fit into existing schemas to create meaning
- Memories are not copies of experiences, but reconstructions
4
Q
Bartlett Study (cognitive)
Limitations
A
- Lack of reliability - Times between retellings were not controlled and participants were not asked to be as accurate as possible
- Cross-cultural validity - Study only used on British participants
- No control group - Would be interesting to see how distortions occured in a native American group
- Temporal validity - Study was conducted almost 100 years ago
5
Q
Bartlett Study (cognitive)
Ethical considerations
A
- Slight deception used to reduce participant bias
6
Q
Bartlett Study (cognitive)
Research Method
A
Experiment
