bartletts recontrustive Flashcards
What did Bartlett argue?
Memory wasn’t like a tape recorder and can be changed and transformed and previous and current exp affect how memory is perceived, stored and retrieved
Why did Bartlett use the war of ghosts story?
Culturally unfamiliar, lacked rational order, dramatic nature encourage visual imaging, and conclusion was supernatural
Procedure
20 participants read the story twice and recalled it after:
Several minutes,
Weeks,
Months and
Years (longest time was 6.5 years).
What did he find after the procedure?
The story became much SHORTER
People used PHRASES FROM MODERN LIFE
The story had more of an ORDER
People CHANGED many words to MORE FAMILIAR WORDS e.g. ‘canoe’ =‘boat’, ‘hunting seals’ = ‘fishing’
Many people LEFT OUT THE PART ABOUT GHOSTS because they did not understand the role of them in the story. Either this or they RATIONALISED their presence in some way.
What did he say memory is prone to?
OMISSION (leaving out parts that didn’t make sense)
RATIONALISATION (Making story more logical to the participant)
TRANSFORMATION (putting part of the story in a different order or changing words to more familiar words to make sense)
What are schemas?
Schemas are parcels of stored knowledge or a mental representation of information about a specific event or object.
How did schemas influence memory?
What you encode and store - If the new information conflicts with your schema of that subject, it may fail to encode in the first place. The existing schema may manipulate how the information is encoded based on previous experiences & memories.
Retrieve - When you later try to recall that memory, you might recall only those elements that fit in with the relevant schema. Other elements that don’t fit are either distorted or forgotten altogether
What did Bartlett argue to do with schemas
We do not remember everything that we perceive,
We need to draw on (use) the schemata that we have to fill in the gaps in our knowledge.
This links back to the idea that recall of memory is an ACTIVE RECONSTRUCTION of an event influenced by:
- STORED KNOWLEDGE
- EXPECTATIONS
- BELIEFS
Evidence PEEC
Strength due to much supporting evidence eg Brewer and Treyens had ppts wait in an office then recall what was in the office and recalled expected items (some that weren’t there) but not unexpected items + Loftus & Palmer found ppts memories altered through leading questions indicated memory is recontrative + Allport & Postman showed ppts drawing of ppt arguing on a subway train then asked to describe to another ppt black character better dressed and more respectable than white but ppt tended to reverse appearences
Methodology PEEC
His experiments lacked control and standardisation in their procedures and findings were qualitive .This is because he described the nature of recalling in a descriptive way. Which means that his experiments may be open to subjective interpretation and lack validity. Furthermore, the war of ghosts has been practised for not being relevant to everyday memory .This is because it’s a folk story which is unfamiliar to ppts meaning his theory lacks validity. However, his research is more similar to real life as it involves people remembering artificial materials eg trigrams as people don’t usually use their memories like this.
Applications
Understandingschemascan help with supporting dementia sufferers.
When memories are lost, the world becomes a frightening and confusing place.
Schemas help us make sense of things if they can be applied.
Carers may use familiar music from the past, old activities reminiscing about long ago events to activate schemas that sufferers are comfortable with.
This can be seen in the “dementia village” atHogeway. Residents choose to live and spend time in areas of the village themed around their schemas – classy and cultural, working class and rustic, urban and busy, quiet and religious.
The idea that we should “go along” with dementia sufferers’ schemas is central toVALIDATION THERAPY
Nature v Nuture
Schemas are probably innate: people in different cultures use schemas to organise information (nature).
However, the content of the schemas is influenced by our experiences (ie nurture)
Social control
It may be possible to deliberately influence people’s memories – for example through the use of leading questions. (Links to Loftus & Palmer, 1974)
Individual differences
Our own unique experiences will cause our schemas to be different from one another
Psychology as a science
There is a lack of control and standardisation in Bartlett’s experiments – he bumped into a participant and asked them to recall the story – purely by chance! Qualitative data may be subjective.
