Reconstructive memory Flashcards
What is a schema?
Each persons understanding of how the world works.
-makes everyone’s versions different.
What is a grounded theory?
A theory that is developed after the study.
What are the 3 elements that show alongside schemas?
-confabulation
-simplification
-rationalisation
What is confabulation?
-When details are unconsciously changed to fit the norms of British culture.
-New information is added in to fill a memory so it makes sense.
What is simplification?
when people shorten a story and leaving out pieces that they think are irrelevant.
What is rationalisation?
-When peoples change the order of a story in order to make sense of it using terms more familiar to the culture of the participants.
-They also add details/emotions.
What did Bartlett do to find evidence for reconstructive memory?
He conducted a study in which he read a Native American story to a group of British participants and later asked them to recall the story multiple times.
What were the results of Bartlett’s study?
-After about 6 recall sessions, the participants average story shortened from 330 words to 180 words.
-The British participants made a number of mistakes in their recall.
What were the conclusions of Bartlett’s study?
-They were changing unfamiliar information to make it fit their own culture and contained more and more changes with each recollection.
What are the reasons as to why we may change stories to match our schemas?
-We tend to ignore info that is not compatible with our existing schema
-We remember the gist of the events but not the details
-We use schema-based knowledge to interpret current situations to fill in gaps of memory.
-We use schemas to help us guess what probable happened when we cannot remember.
What is the evidence for reconstructive memory?
Bartlett’s study.
where can this theory be applied?
-This theory is useful in understanding how our memory can be manipulated by post event information which is important for eye witness testimony.
-We know that only gaps we have in our memory we will in with schemas making memory inaccurate
-This is useful to the police in ensuring they don’t contribute to witnesses reconstructing events and making sure they give their own account rather than being influenced by leading questions.
what is the contrasting research for this theory?
-The theory is limited in its explanation of recalling memories
-It doesn’t fully explain why often unusual information cant be easily incorporated into existing schema.
-This distinctiveness effect has long been noted, and other theories such as ‘light bulb moments’ are more successful in explaining why.
What does reconstructive memory agree with?
-Reconstructive memory agrees with Tulving’s explanation of episodic memory
-Episodic memory can be distorted by similarity or other memories and affected by cues, an it also demonstrates that semantic memories can be developed from episodic memories.
-This adds reliability/credibility to both Tulving’s LTM explanations and reconstructive memory.
How useful is the theory?
-War of ghosts was used to formulate the theory which others have argues reduces the validity of the theory.
-One problem is the use of fold tales because they are written in an unusual style and so may not actually represent everyday memory.
-This lacks mundane realism of how we would use reconstructive memory in everyday life. However, the material is more valid than later studies that have used nonsense material.
