Reconstructive Memory - Bartlett 1932

Question 1

What idea do the MSM, WMM, and Tulving’s ideas of semantic and episodic memory work with?

Answer 1

The idea of memory being about separate stores and brain function working in separate stores, some temporary and other long-term.

Question 2

How are Bartlet’s ideas about memory different to the ideas of the other models?

Answer 2

His ideas are about memory being a reconstruction.

Question 3

What are memories a reconstruction of?

Answer 3

Of previous knowledge and memories (schemas).

Question 4

Bartlett’s idea is that memories are…

Answer 4

… a combination of specific traces encoded at the time of the event, along with our knowledge, expectations, beliefs and experiences of such an event.

Question 5

What does the reconstructive model of memory highlight?

Answer 5

How recall is affected by previous experiences.

Question 6

What is reconstructive memory?

Answer 6

The theory that memories aren’t exact copies of what is encoded and stored. Rather, they are affected by prior experience and knowledge in the form of schemas.

Question 7

What are schemas?

Answer 7

Cognitive plans/ scripts that are built up using experiences about everyday life. They affect the processing of information.

Question 8

Bartlett said that memory is not like…

Answer 8

… a tape recorder.

Question 9

What does it mean that memory isn’t like a tape recorder?

Answer 9

It doesn’t record EVERYTHING.

Question 10

Loftus & Mackworth’s study shows that people look at unexpected items in a scene more than at expected items. What do they conclude from this?

Answer 10

That having prior knowledge and schemas about scenes can free up cognitive processing capacity.

Question 11

Why is it useful that cognitive processing capacity can be freed up?

Answer 11

Because the capacity can then be allocated to what is inconsistent.

Question 12

A memory is not perfectly?

Answer 12

Formed, encoded and retrieved.

Question 13

It is unlikely that a memory is retrieved exactly as…

Answer 13

… it was originally perceived.

Question 14

Bartlett thought that the past and current experiences of individuals would?

Answer 14

Affect their memory of events.

Question 15

Remembering involves the retrieval of?

Answer 15

Knowledge that has been altered to fit with knowledge that the person already has.

Question 16

Bartlett used the idea of ‘Chinese Whispers’ when he thought about?

Answer 16

Memory being reconstructive.

Question 17

Why did Bartlett link the idea of memory to ‘Chinese Whispers’?

Answer 17

Because the story is ‘reconstructed’ - it becomes changed along the way, often so that it makes sense to the person telling it, and the final retelling can be completely different from the original.

Question 18

‘War of the Ghosts’ is?

Answer 18

A native American folk story.

Question 19

Why didn’t ‘War of the Ghosts’ fit in well with the participants’ existing schemas?

Answer 19

Because it was unfamiliar to them and came from a different culture.

Question 20

What was the overall procedure of the experiment?

Answer 20

• each participant read through the story twie
• asked to recall the story 15 minutes later
• further recalls followed

Question 21

What did results show?

Answer 21

• changes that began in the first reproduction became more pronounced over time
• story gradually became more concise & coherent
• there was elaboration on the story

Question 22

When there are fairly fixed repetitions over time…

Answer 22

… the story becomes rather fixed and doesn’t change much.

Question 23

One participant recalled the story 2 & 1/2 years after having first read it.
What was found?

Answer 23

• it was much shorter
• only the bare outline remained
• rationalisation
• confabulation

Question 24

What is rationalisation?

Answer 24

Making things make more sense.

Question 25

What is confabulation?

Answer 25

Making up bits to fill in a memory so that it makes sense.

Question 26

As part of the reconstruction of the story, there was conformity with?

Answer 26

Common ideas, for e.g. that people die at sunset, even though in the story the person died as the sun rose.

Question 27

After 6 recalls, the story was reduced from…

Answer 27

… 330 words to 180.

Question 28

Summarise what was found regarding rationalisation and confabulation.

Answer 28

Bartlett found that people rationalised the parts that didn’t make sense, and they filled in their memories so that they were recalling what was, to them, a sensible story.

Question 29

Participants recontructed their memories of the story.

What did Bartlett conclude about memory from these findings?

Answer 29

He concluded that memory is reconstructive, rather than reproductive.

Question 30

Style & rhythm of the story were?

Answer 30

Kept the same

Question 31

What happens when reproduction is frequent?

Answer 31

Details become stereotyped, after which there is little change.

Question 32

What happens with less frequent reproduction?

Answer 32

Details are missed out, there is simplification of events, and items are transformed into something more familiar.

Question 33

With long-term remembering, the general setting remains & people remember details that stood out for them.
What does this show?

Answer 33

That memory is constructed and there is inference.