Chapter 1 - Memory Flashcards
Key term:
RECONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY
definition: altering our recollection of things so that they make more sense to us
Study:
Bartlett (1932)
aim: to see if people, when given something unfamiliar to remember, would alter the information
method: participants were asked to read a story called “The War of the Ghosts”, which was a Native American legend. later they were asked to retell the story as accurately as possible. this retelling was repeated several times during the weeks that followed.
results: his participants found it difficult to remember bits of the story concerned with spirits and changed other bits of the story so that it made more sense to them. each time they retold the story they changed it some more.
conclusion: Bartlett concluded that our memory is influenced by our own beliefs.
Key term:
LEVELS OF PROCESSING
definition: the depth at which information is thought about when trying to learn it
Study:
Wynn and Logie (1998)
aim: to see if the recall of familiar stories changed in the same way that Bartlett found with unfamiliar stories.
method: they asked university students to recall details of their first week at uni. they were asked to do this several times throughout the year.
results: the results showed that the accuracy of their descriptions remained the same no matter how many times they were asked to recall the info. this is unlike Bartlett’s participants who changed their stories with every telling.
conclusion: Wynn and Logie concluded that memories for familiar events will not change over time.
Key term:
Structural processing
definition: thinking about the PHYSICAL APPEARANCE of words to be learnt
Key term:
Phonetic processing
definition: thinking about the SOUND of the words to be learnt
Study:
Craik and Lockhart (1972)
aim: to see if the type of question asked about words will have an effect on the number of words recalled.
method: participants were presented with a list of words, one at a time, and asked questions about each word, to which which they had to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. some questions required structural processing of the words; others required phonetic processing and the remainder required semantic processing. they were then given a longer list of words and asked to identify the words they had answered questions about.
results: participants identified 70% of the words that required semantic processing, 35% of the words that required phonetic processing and 15% of the words that required structural processing.
conclusion: the more deeply information is processed, the more likely it is to be remembered
Key term:
Semantic processing
definition: thinking about the meaning of words to be learnt
