Memory as an Active Process

Question 1

What is reconstructive memory?
(Theory of Reconstructive Memory)

Answer 1

Reconstructive memory is when we alter our recollection of information or events so that they make more sense to us.
Human memory is not a literal reproduction of the past, but instead relies on constructive processes that are sometimes prone to error and distortion so we change our memories to fit in with what we already know (our SCHEMAS) even though we believe we are thinking accurately.

Question 2

What is a Schema?
(Theory of Reconstructive Memory)

Answer 2

A schema is a collection of memories on a certain topic.

Question 3

What is it meant by effort after meaning?
(Theory of Reconstructive Memory)

Answer 3

As memory is an active process, we try to make sense of events and information using our previous knowledge and experience. Individuals recall the meaning of events rather than specific details. After an event, we make an effort to interpret the meaning in more familiar terms to make sense of the fragments.

Question 4

How are our memories affected by stereotypes?
(Theory of Reconstructive Memory)

Answer 4

We alter our memories so that they fit into our social and cultural expectations/schemas. For example, if eyewitnesses recall an attack that occurred in the street, even if they didn’t see the attack, they may recall a man as the attacker because in society males are more aggressive.

Question 5

What was the study on reconstructive memory called?

Answer 5

Bartlett’s ‘War of the Ghosts’ study

Question 6

What was Bartlett’s hypothesis?

Answer 6

His hypothesis was that if a person was given something to remember and then asked to recall the story or picture over a period of weeks or years, the recollection would be endlessly transformed.

Question 7

What was the aim of Bartlett’s ‘War of the Ghosts’ study?

Answer 7

His aim was to investigate whether people’s memory of a story is affected by previous knowledge.

Question 8

What was Bartlett’s method of conducting the study?

Answer 8

-He asked British participants to read a Native American Folk story—a story from a different culture to their own.
- After a while (e.g. 15 min) he asked them to reproduce (repeat) the story to another person. That person must then recall the story to another person, like the game Chinese Whispers.
-Each time the story was reproduced, a record was made of each person’s story.
-Ppts. were asked again and again, over a period of months and years, which he called serial reproduction.

Question 9

What were Bartlett’s results?

Answer 9

-The participants remembered the main idea of the story but they changed unfamiliar elements to make sense of the story by using terms more familiar to their own cultural expectations.
- For example: The story was shortened, mainly by omissions (missed out information of 350-150 words)
- The phrases were changed to language and concepts from The participant’s own culture. E.g., boat instead of canoe.
-The recalled version was fixed but there were slight variations.

Question 10

What was Bartlett’s conclusion?

Answer 10

Bartlett concluded that our memory is not an exact copy of what we hear. It is distorted by what we already know about the world. We don’t remember details, we remember fragments and use our knowledge of social situations to reconstruct memory.

Question 11

Evaluation of the Theory of Constructive Memory
(1-Strength)

Answer 11

One strength of the reconstructive memory is that Bartlett’s research reflects how memory is used in real life and is more realistic than the research that uses word lists. Before Bartlett, researchers used nonsense syllable to research memory for example RTC and KL. These are artificial and not reflective of how we use our memory in real life. From this research we can be more certain of how reconstructive memory works in everyday life as people are often hear stories and are asked to retail them to other friends or family.

Question 12

Evaluation of the Theory of Constructive Memory
(2-Weakness)

Answer 12

One weakness is that it is writing to suggest that all memories are inaccurate or affected by social expectations. Other research shows that memory can be very accurate, for example, a lot of people in the War of Ghosts remembered that ‘something black came out of his mouth’ because it was quite a distinctive phrase. This shows that people do not always actively reconstruct memories. It may only happen on a few occasions.

Question 13

Evaluation of the Theory of Constructive Memory
(3-Strength)

Answer 13

One strength of a reconstructive memory theory is that it can explain problems with eyewitness testimony. Eyewitnesses are regarded as very important and evidence in court in order to give an accurate picture of what happened during the crime. Some witnesses are required to swear under oath. Bartlett’s research showed that memory is not always accurate and can be affected by our expectations of what happened. Research on eyewitness testimony says that it is inaccurate and now it is not considered as the most important factor in court, more reliance is paid to DNA results.

Question 14

Evaluation of Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts Study. 1-W: *English students

Answer 14

Bartlett’s original study was conducted with students from Cambridge University who are studying English. This has caused some to argue that Bartlett sample was biased. This is a weakness because students studying English will be accustomed to reading different pieces of texts and comprehension tasks and will therefore have a better recall of the story compared to other types of students. Therefore, this reduces the external validity of Bartlett’s war of the ghost study and limit support for memory being a reconstructive process.

Question 15

Evaluation of Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts Study. 2-W: *Standardisation

Answer 15

One weakness is the study was conducted rather casually with no set standards about where and how people recalled the information.Participants were not given very specific instructions at the outset about what they should do. Another study found that recall was much more accurate when participants were told from the beginning, that accurate recall is important (Gauld and Stephenson 1967). However, participants still did make errors. This suggests that recall is probably more accurate than Bartlett suggested.

Question 16

Evaluation of Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts Study. 3-W: *Reflectivity of everyday memory processes

Answer 16

One weakness is that the story was unusual and therefore may not reflect everyday memory processes. Most of the time we use memory to deal with quite everyday experiences. In such cases, our memories are not affected by cultural expectations and we therefore may recall things quite accurately.However, Bartlett’s task could be praised for being more realistic compared to other tasks in memory experiments where participants are asked to recall a list of words.

Question 17

What are 3 factors that affect the accuracy of memory?

Answer 17

Interference
False memories
Context

Question 18

What is interference?

Answer 18

Interference is a form of forgetting. Interference theory states that when 2 memories compete with each other, one memory may prevent us from accessing the other memory. This is especially likely when information is similar.
When information is interfered with, it reduces the accuracy of memory.
There are 2 types of interference; proactive and retroactive interference. Pro means forward and retro means back.

Question 19

What is proactive interference?

Answer 19

Proactive interference is when you forget the new information because older information is already stored and interferes with older memories. For e.g., calling your new boyfriend by your old boyfriend’s name.

Question 20

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 20

Retroactive interference is when you forget the old information because the new information interferes with the accuracy of the old memory. For example, when a teacher forgets the names of the students they taught last year because she has remembered all of the names of her new students.

Question 21

Evaluation of interference theory: 1-S

Answer 21

A strength of the study is that there was high control.
A number of techniques were used such as counterbalancing in order to control the experiment. Participants were not given the 5 lists in the same order. This meant that the order of the list was not a variable that would have affected the results.

Question 22

Evaluation of interference theory: 2-W

Answer 22

One weakness of the study is that interference was tested using the accuracy of recalling a list of words. People do not usually have to recall a list of similar words in real life when testing their memory. Therefore, the research does not reflect the accuracy of memory in real life, and more valid research should be completed.

Question 23

Evaluation of interference theory: 3-W

Answer 23

Another weakness of the research is that it ignores other reasons why memory is inaccurate. Interference may not be the only reason why people forget. The context in which we learn information can also have an effect on how accurately we recall or forget information. Therefore, interference is not a complete explanation of why our memories are inaccurate.

Question 24

What is context?

Answer 24

Context is the environment in which an event or memory happens. Context can act as a cue to recall memories improving their accuracy. Certain triggers can be encoded in memory at the time of learning. For example, if you imagine your primary school classroom it may trigger a memory of something you learned in that room, or something that happened when you were there. Research has shown the context can improve the accuracy of memory.

Question 25

Describe the experiment on context.

Answer 25

Godden and Baddeley carried out an interesting study of deep sea divers working underwater. In this it is crucial, a matter of life-and-death for divers to remember instructions given before diving about their work underwater. In the study divers learned of list of words underwater or on land and then we’re asked to recall the words either underwater or on land. This therefore created 4 conditions.
Group 1- learn on land and recall underwater
Group 2- learn on land and recall on land
Group 3- learn underwater and recall on land
Group 4- learn underwater and recall underwater
In 2 of these conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched, whereas in the other 2 they did not. Accurate recall is 40% lower in the non matching conditions.

Question 26

Evaluation of context theory: 1-W

Answer 26

A weakness of this research is that it used an artificial task to measure forgetting. Divers were asked to remember a list of words, this is not the most accurate way to measure forgetting in real life. Other research has shown that when remembering more complex real life information memory is not affected by context.

Question 27

Evaluation of context theory: 2-W

Answer 27

Other weakness of the research is that the recall of the words was asked in a short-term context. The study was unrealistic as participants recalled the words almost immediately, therefore we cannot apply our knowledge to why we forget information exams where the gap between learning and recall is longer. Therefore, the context does not affect the accuracy of memory in all learning situations.

Question 28

Evaluation of context theory: 3-W

Answer 28

A weakness with context is that context only acts as a cue for recall if the context at the time of learning and recall are very similar. In reality most information, such as learning information for a test, is not affected by context as most exams happen in a quiet enclosed area. Therefore context does not affect the accuracy of memory in many situations.

Question 29

What are false memories?

Answer 29

False memories are one an individual remember something that hasn’t actually happened. These memory seem real but aren’t. For example, an individual may think they have put the washing machine on before they went out but they didn’t.

Question 30

Who conducted a study on false memories?

Answer 30

Elizabeth F. Loftus

Question 31

What did Loftus suggest that reduced the reliability of witness testimony?

Answer 31

Loved us investigated eyewitness testimony and suggested that people who witnessed a crime do not passively record the scene but they actively reconstruct it baseed on piecing together fragments of what they remember and most importantly their expectations of what they think should have happened.

Question 32

What study did Loftus conduct?

Answer 32

The ‘lost in the mall’ study

Question 33

What was the aim of Loftus’ study?

Answer 33

The aim of the study was to investigate if false memories could be created by participants.

Question 34

What was the method of Loftus’ study?

Answer 34

There were 24 participants, ranging from the ages of 18 to 53 years old. The participants were given 4 short stories about their childhood, the researcher contacted family members to find out about these memories. 3 of the stories were true and 1 was false. The false story was about getting lost in a shopping mall and being rescued by an elderly woman. The false story sounded realistic because some details were added that were relevant to the participants such as their favourite store.

Question 35

Evaluation of Loftus’ study:
1-S

Answer 35

Research to support false memories as a factor affecting the accuracy of recall was conducted by Loftus and Pickrell. They questioned participants about their childhood using information from their parents to describe a true event that occurred as well as a false event. 25% of the participants believed the false memory thinking they had actually become lost and recalled details about what happened to them when they were lost. This supports that false memories can be mistaken for real memories and therefore affect the accuracy of recall.

Question 36

Evaluation of Loftus’ study:
2-W

Answer 36

A weakness though however is that Loftus and Pickrell’s study into false memories raised ethical issues. The participants were manipulated because the researchers planted false memories into their head and getting lost in the mall as a child may have brought up traumatic feelings for the participants as they believed this was real, meaning that the participants may not have been protected from harm. This devalues the research into false memories as a factor affecting the accuracy recall and devalues psychology’s status.

Question 37

Evaluation of Loftus’ study:
3-W

Answer 37

An alternative factor affecting the accuracy recall is interference. This theory suggests that recall is inaccurate because similar information interferes with each other during coding and makes it difficult to accurately recall the information rather than having false memories. Therefore, false memories is not the only factor to consider when explaining inaccurate recall.