Evaluate Reconstructive Memory (8 marks) Flashcards
What are schemas?
→ Schemas: packages of information we have about everything we know.
What is Rationalisation?
Rationalization: changing the order of the event in order to make sense of it.
What is Transformation?
Transformation: new information added in to fill in a memory so it makes sense and becomes more consistent with the participants own culture.
What is confabulation?
Confabulation - false memories where new information was added in to fill a memory so it makes sense.
What is simplification?
Simplification: condensing information/event/memory more easily stored.
What is perception?
Perception: we apply to labels to object and events, these labels are based on past experiences and knowledge which are then used when recalling memory of that event or object.
What is Imaging?
Imaging: this when we use ‘effort after meaning’ we use our own stored images to interpret the memory we use past knowledge to create meaning to our memories, once it has meaning it can be easier to store.
What is the ‘War Ghost Theory’?
“War of the ghost”: asked a group of Europeans to recall the story → it was a unusual story from a different culture, the Europeans made a mistake in their recall. Bartlett include that participants were changing unfamiliar information to make it fit their own culture and contained more changes with each other recollection
How does the study have credibility? - Loftus and Palmer
Point: The idea of schemas has been supported in a lot of studies since the 1930s
Example: Loftuscarried out a range of lab experiments into reconstructive memory, all of which had tight experimental controls, standardised procedures and collected quantitative data,
Explain: making them quiteobjectiveandreliable.
How does the study have credibility? - John Charles de Menezes
Point: Schemas also explains the puzzling phenomenon offalse memories.
Example: In 2005,John Charles de Menezes, was mistaken for a terrorist and shot by police after the 7/7 London Bombing. Many eyewitnesses saw the shooting but their recollections were widely different and often exaggerated
Explain: Their schemas about the appearance and behaviour of terrorists might have sharpened and levelled their memories.
How does the study have objections?
Point: The early study by Bartlett wasnot at all scientific.
Example: Bartlett did not follow standardised procedures, getting his students to reproduce the story as-and-when. He had no scoring system for measuring changes in recall other than counting the number of words.
Explain: This makes his research conclusionssubjective.
How does the study have Differences? - Tulving
Point: Reconstructive Memory has links toTulvings theory about semantic memory
Example: Tulving argues our memory hassemantic storeswhere we keep our understanding of relationships and rules – very similar to schemas. If Reconstructive Memory is true, this makes Tulving’s ideas more plausible.
Explain: Moreover, semantic memory might have much more influence over episodic memory than Tulving imagined, because schemes dictate how we reconstruct our memories.
How does the study have Differences? - criticism
Point: A criticism of Reconstructive Memory compared to the other theories is that it doesn’t explain how memory is reconstructed.
Example: The other cognitive theories of memory describe theprocesses at work in rehearsing, retrieving and recalling.
Explain: These processes have been linked to specific parts of the brain thanks to brain scanning and research on patients with lesions in specific parts of the brain. Reconstructive Memory is much more vague about how schemas work and where they are located.
How does the study have Applications? - Clive Wearing
Point: The idea of schemas helps us understand some things about patients with memory loss likeClive Wearingor people in the early stages ofdementia.
Example: Though they may be confused by their amnesia, they might still remember important schemas and this could be used to calm and focus them. For example, Clive Wearing still loved his wife and loved music, which he could still play.
Explain: Validation Therapyinvolves “going along” with delusional ideas so as not to cause distress when a patient’s schemas conflict with the real world.
How does the study have Applications? - Elizabeth Loftus
Point: Elizabeth Loftus is often called to US courts as an “expert witness” to advise juries about how much trust they should put in eyewitnesses.
Example: Loftus has been involved in a number of“recovered memory” caseswhere someone receiving psychotherapy starts to recall sexual abuse from their childhood that they had not known about before.
Explain: Loftus argues these are“false memories”based on leading questions from therapists and schemas about child abuse in the media.
